【Clear Water Bay, Hainan – March 28, 2026】 From January 25 to March 27, 2026, the "Year of the Horse Spring Festival · Regong Thangka Art Exhibition" was successfully held at Raffles Hainan. Marking the dual arrival of the Lunar Year of the Horse and the Tibetan Fire Horse Year, the two-month exhibition featured over 20 exquisite Regong Thangka works, offering domestic and international visitors a visual feast blending Eastern aesthetics and Tibetan Buddhist culture.

Father and Son: A Legacy of Mastery

The exhibited works were created by Master Guanque Nuori and his father Master Sang Jieben, along with their teams. Master Sang Jieben is one of the most influential figures in contemporary Regong Thangka. A student of the legendary master Jian Mecuo — one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" of Regong art in the last century — Sang's works, including Five Hundred Arhats, have been permanently collected by the National Museum of China.

Master Guanque Nuori, Sang's son and apprentice, represents the new generation of Thangka artists. Born in the 1990s, he began learning Thangka painting at the age of eight and now has 15 years of experience. During the exhibition, Guanque Nuori personally explained the cultural significance and painting techniques behind the Thangkas, helping visitors better understand the charm of Regong art.

Auspicious Beginnings for the Horse Year

The Year of the Horse holds special significance in Tibetan culture, where the horse symbolizes strength, speed, and good fortune. The selected works span various Thangka genres, including Color Thangka, Black Thangka, and Gold Thangka. From serene Buddha images to auspicious protector deities, each piece strictly follows the Iconometric Canon, using natural mineral pigments such as cinnabar, turquoise, and realgar. As Guanque Nuori explained: "Realgar yields gold and yellow, turquoise yields green and blue, and cinnabar yields red. Thangkas painted with these colors never fade over time".

Warm Reception and High Praise

The exhibition coincided with the peak Spring Festival travel season. Raffles Hainan, as a world-class luxury resort, attracted a large number of domestic and international guests. According to hotel statistics, over 10,000 visitors experienced the exhibition.

Notably, the exhibition drew strong interest from foreign tourists. Visitors from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Russia, and other countries eagerly inquired about Thangka painting techniques and their religious-cultural significance. Many remarked that this was their first close encounter with Thangka art, describing it as a "miracle of Eastern art."

Preserving Heritage, Embracing the World

The exhibition not only enriched Hainan's Spring Festival cultural offerings but also served as a window to showcase China's outstanding traditional culture to the world. Regong Thangka was inscribed on the UNESCO World Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2009. In Wutun Village, Tongren County, Qinghai Province — known as the "Hometown of Thangka Art" — every household paints Thangkas, passing the tradition from generation to generation. This collaboration between a luxury hotel and intangible cultural heritage art represents a model of cross-sector cooperation, injecting new vitality into Hainan Free Trade Port's international cultural exchanges.