Overall - image provided by exhibitor, not for public use

Self at Easel

Series TitleDaily doodles, 2001-2023

Artist Gonkar Gyatso (Tibetan, born 1961)

DateNovember 20, 2015

MediumPencil, ink, stickers, paper cut-out on fine art paper

DimensionsFramed: 13 3/16 × 11 3/4 × 2 inches (33.5 × 29.85 × 5.08 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the generosity of the Foyer Foundation and the George H. and Elizabeth O. Davis Fund

Object number2025.29.10

On View

Not on view

Terms

DescriptionThis piece depicts the artist, who is facing away from the viewer and writing down information from a driving textbook. He has his left hand behind his back and is holding two drawing utensils in it. He is wearing loose, blue shorts and house slippers. Surrounding the man is a variety of cartoon characters and other images. Some are drawn while others are stickers. The boy in the bottom right is his son, Noah. Nearly all the blank space is filled with text of various sizes, fonts, and colors. Some is in Chinese, while other parts are in Tibetan. The stickers with Tibetan text were made by Gonkar.

Text:
The numbers “168” and “6.8” are Air Quality Index numbers from Chengdu and Phuket.
On the left side, in horizontal text taken from a news report, it reads, “From this inspection...We understand the trip to Jiangsu of President Xi Jinping, and President Xi’s overall planning...”.

The bottle on the right side of the image reads, “Vaccine”.

The vertical text on the right side of the image reads,
“Traditional virtues, remember about them more；
knowledge and manners, talk about them more;
When you talking and socializing, be more politely;
When you driving and riding, be more slowly;
When you walking and passing, be more cautiously.......”

Around the composition, there are many larger sized slogans, which read:
“Bravo!”,
“Can’t See it more”,
“Fight!”,
“My eyes’ve learned something (from watching Tik Tok, but my hands have not)”,
“This is the last episode”,
“There used to be an illustration here”,
“Efforts”,
and “50%-30% Off For Some Items”.

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