Gouache Thanka Painter: Dinesh Charan

Dinesh Charan Berkeley, CA

Sinopia is honored to introduce our March Artist of the Month: Dinesh Charan. Dinesh Charan Shrestha was born in Kathmandu, Nepal and has lived and worked in Berkeley, California since 2005.

He is known as one of the great masters of Newari Paubha painting, which is the precursor of the better known Tibetan Thanka painting. His finely detailed works of both Hindu and Buddhist deities are recognized and collected worldwide.

Dinesh was attracted to the small precise details he saw in the work of traditional artists the first time he saw them and began seriously studying this demanding painting technique at age 18. He worked alongside his older brother, Uday, in a one-room studio. Both learned by copying the best paintings and reading books on mudras and other formal aspects of traditional Newari thanka paintings.

Dinesh's palette heavily relies on brilliant colors that stem from the red pigments and blue violet pigments part of the color wheel. The brilliance of these colors vibrate in contrast and bring his paintings to life.

Matangi (Hindu deity one of the ten maha vidya),
Gouache and Gold Paint on Homemade Canvas,
2008

Vairochana (one of five dhayni Buddhas),
Gouache and Gold Paint on Homemade Canvas,
2009

Dinesh completed his degree in business in Kathmandu, studying during the morning and spending the rest of the day painting and selling his work. After college he devoted all his time to mastering the painting he loved.

Eventually the work of both brothers won the respect of established, older Newari thanka painters, who granted them private, formal instruction.

In 1996 Dinesh won the second prize in the prestigious Nepalese National Art Exhibition and in 1998 he took first place for a monumental depiction of Hevajra surrounded by 16 deities, a painting to which he devoted a full year.

During the twenty-five years Dinesh has been working with opaque watercolor in the traditional Newari style and subject matter, he has also produced large works in oil and depicted nontraditional subjects including animals and contemporary Hindu sadhanas.

Chitapati,
Gouache and Gold Paint on Homemade Canvas,
2009

Padmapani Lokeshor (one of the 108 Lokeshors),
Gouache and Gold Paint on Homemade Canvas,
2009

His paintings are in the collection of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City as well as private collections worldwide, notably the collection of Robert Beer, London, UK. Dinesh sells his work directly and is also represented by Siddhartha V Shah. Dinesh also teaches serious student since moving to the US. He refers students to the Sinopia on-line catalog in his classes in Berkeley at Yoga Mandala.

Website for Dinesh Charan: http://dcshrestha.webs.com/