Pekar

Pekar was born in Atro, Gaba in Kham in 1964. Her father, Lobsang Thugyal, was a well-known traditional sculptor and painter. She inherited her father's talents and was already using her artistic creativity from a very young age.

She joined an art class started by some Chinese artists who were visiting her area in 1984. Later she joined the Fine Arts Department of the North West Minorities Institute in Lanzhou, China, where she studied oil painting, sculpture, design, music, poetry and philosophy. She received her Bachelor's degree in Art in 1990.

For the next two years after returning to Jeykundo, she worked at the Department of People's Art, designing book covers and translating folk literature.

It was only after her return home from university that Pekar first learnt about the Tibetan community in exile. She then decided to go to India as she felt that there was no way to preserve Tibetan culture in Tibet under the communist Chinese government.

In June 1993, Pekar arrived in Dharamsala, India, where Tibetan government-in-exile is based. She worked at the Tibetan Children's Village teaching art to students and training teachers in basic art instructions.

Thereafter, with the help of various Tibetan centres in Dharamsala, she was able to use her artistic talents to create paintings and sculptures depicting Tibetan history and the struggle for a free Tibet.

She has exhibited her works in the Tibetan cultural festival organised by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in June 2000.

A testimony of Pekar's work is a monument in the Tibet Museum in Dharamsala, which is created in memory of 1.2 million Tibetans who died as a result of the Chinese occupation of Tibet.