Jan-Feb Art Show: Tom Larson

Posted on December 9, 2025 Posted By: Achsah Carrier Categories: Art, News & Views

About the Exhibit

By Tom Larson

In this latest series of paintings I was inspired to follow the traditions of Tibetan Thangka art as well as Japanese and Korean Buddhist imagery. I also did a series of realistic Tibetan style stupas that I visited in the United States. There is a couple pieces from travels years ago.

By using only traditional Buddhist Imagery with a little creative flair, I’m trying to be faithful to an ancient, timeless tradition whose purpose is to benefit all beings, free us from suffering and awaken us to our deepest potential, our Buddha Nature.

Painting has become a part of my spiritual practice. Having Buddhist or any spiritual imagery around us will create positive impressions deep in our consciousness and can be a reminder to stop, reflect and discover a refuge of spiritual protection, comfort and inspiration.

ORIGINAL PAINTINGS FOR SALE

Medicine Buddha (1)

Your body is the color of a mountain of Lapis Lazuli. You dispel the suffering o disease from all sentient beings. Your retinue of eight bodhisattvas surrounds you. I pay homage to the deity who holds the precious medicine.
May the many sentient beings who are sick quickly be freed from sickness, and may all the sicknesses of beings never arise again.

1.Medicine Buddha with Green Halo
Original Acrylic on Canvas
24″ x 18″
$260

2. Medicine Buddha with Yellow Halo
Original Acrylic on Canvas
24″ x 18″
$280

White Tara
Noble Savioress Tara

Deity on whom I meditated in lives gone by. You are the enlightened activity of all Buddhas, past, present and future.
Brilliant white, with one face, two hands and seven eyes, Mother of the Buddhas, holder of the utpala flower, to you I pay homage.

Chenrezig / Avalokiteshvara

O Arya Compassionate-eyed one, who is the treasure of compassion. Please guide myself, mothers and fathers in the six realms to be freed quickly. I request that the vast and profound peerless awakening mind grow. With the tear of your great compassion, please cleanse all karmas and delusions. Please lead with your hand of compassion, me and migrators to fields of bliss. Amitabha and Chenrezig, in all my lives be virtuous friends. Show well the unreceptive pure path and quickly place us in Buddha’s state.

3. Chenrezig/Avalokiteshvara
Original Acrylic on Canvas
24″ x 18″
$300

4. Vajradhara
Original Acrylic on Canvas
24″ x 18″
$300

Buddhist Stupas

Construction of Buddhist Stupas began around the fourth century BCE. King Ashoka in the third century BCE, with a change of heart, adopted Buddhism after a period of persecuting Buddhists. He had many stupas built throughout his kingdom. Some of them, such as The Great Stupa of Sanchi, still exist today in India.

In East Asia the stupa appears in the form of the pagoda.

The Stupa is extremely important in Buddhist faith and practice because it represents the heart/mind and wisdom of the Buddha. They are usually filled to the brim with consecrated holy objects such scrolls of prayers and scriptures, statues, thangkas, bells, jewels, tsa tsas, relics of Buddhist masters, and sometimes even the remains of the historical Buddha. All these objects are said to give off radiant blessings. The act of going on pilgrimage to a distant stupa, or even thinking about it, brings great merit and releases stress and karma. Circumambulating a stupa while mentally or verbally reciting a prayer or mantra, visualizing a deity or relaxing the mind in spacious luminosity, or contemplating the teachings of the Buddha, is a wonderful embodied way of spiritual practice that has been cherished by sincere practitioners throughout the ages.

5. Stupa in Snow at Garchen Buddhist Institute, Arizona
Original Acrylic on Canvas
24″ x 18″
$260

6. Tashi Gomang Stupa in Crestone, Colorado
Original Acrylic on CAnvas
24″ x 18″
$290

GICLEE PRINTS ON CANVAS FOR SALE

7. Manjushri/Monju Bosatsu
Giclee Print on Canvas
20″ x 10″
$50

Manjushri Bodhisattva/
Monju Bosatsu

From Japanese style painting
Tibetan Prayer
I pay homage to the Guru and protector, Manjushri!
You intellect is completely pure and utterly clear like the sun freed from the clouds of the two obscurations.
You hold a bound volume at your heart center because you see all things exactly as they are and in their extent.
Whoever is in the prison of existence, stifled by the darkness of ignorance, and pained by suffering – You love like your only child.
Your speech that possesses the sixty types of melodies roars mightily like a dragon. Thus you awaken us from the sleep of afflictions and release the shackles of karma.
You brandish a award. Thus you dispel the darkness of ignorance and sever all possible sprouts of suffering.

8. Quan Yin
Giclee Print on Canvas
20″ x 10″
$50