Kate Oh Gallery is pleased to announce Impermanent bubbles, the first solo show of Pema Rinzin at the gallery.

Bubbles painted with natural dyes and hand-ground mineral pigments fill up Rinzin’s canvases, wood panels, and paper works. The foamy fields are at once planar and dimensional: micro and macro; claustrophobic swarms and vast expanses.

Rinzin chose the bubble because it cannot be held. It appears shimmering before you for only a moment before it pops. Rinzin understands the main teaching of Tibetan Buddhism to be impermanence. For him, there is much to be learned from contemplating something so small and transient.

The bubble is not a new shape for Rinzin. In fact, he has been encircling color since he trained to become a master in Tibetan thangka painting. In every Tibetan thangka, there is an offering presented which represents a gem. Either yellow, blue, green, or red, it is a physical offering to the gods. But its abstract rendering reminds us that even if you have nothing material to give, there is always something to offer: a water droplet, an idea, a prayer.

Rinzin’s past bodies of work have been more figurative. For Impermanent Bubble, he was looking for a process of repetition that paralleled the chanting of a Mantra. “You don’t wear out a mantra”, says Rinzin. “You can do a mantra through all your life into your next life. Collecting one million; two million; three million”. He admits boredom can creep in during the time-consuming repetition of the painting process. But this, too, is an important part of the practice. Cycling through becoming numb, he will once again emerge into the awareness and the sweetness of his efforts.

As Rinzin developed these paintings, he noticed that the bubbles took on particular characteristics. For instance, certain color combinations caused fields of bubbles to form landscapes. Others suggested the cosmos. Still others, which he calls dropping bubbles, became worlds within world, nested and playing with scale.