"Use this and look closely at the work." Every time I meet Paubha artists in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, to research their work I'm handed a magnifying glass. Paubha, traditional Nepalese paintings of Hindu and Buddhist deities, are not unlike Thangka (Buddhist scroll paintings). However they are a special and uniquely Nepalese art style, with strong references to its Newari aesthetic.

Paubha paintings rival the miniatures of Pakistan in stylistic excellence. They are superbly executed with tiny brushes, better viewed with a magnifying glass than the naked eye. The craft is taught not at schools but from master to pupil across generations of painters, and from father to son in painter families. Today they are painted as an important style of contemporary art more than from religious motivations, but still refer faithfully to established iconographic rules and illustrated texts. The artists don't completely replicate the originals, each making subtle additions in terms of composition, color or materials, although these changes are often extremely hard to identify. Devoted to pursuing realism and perfection, the artists are absorbed in technique and fine-tuning as they work. Watching them, I have the sense I am in the presence of Buddhist art masters painting the Kamakura-period classics I studied at university.

By contrast, the Buddhist painting taught at Bhutan's National Institute for Zorig Chusum involves precise duplication of details, such as the positioning of faces in works. Exact copying of the texts is highly regarded. For this reason, I found it difficult to discern between different painters or even to determine which were particularly skilled. This mentality is certainly consistent with Bhutan's national policy of prioritizing traditional arts preservation.

In Chiangmai, Thailand, I met with neo-traditionalist painter Pornchai Jaima, whose works depict Buddhist stories and everyday scenes in gentle colors and soft lines. For his graduation artwork as a student, Jaima spent three years painting a mural for a Buddhist temple. Not surprisingly, Jaima was not paid for the work as he had proposed its execution himself. In Buddhism, the painting and sculpture of bodhisattavas was originally taught through the discipline of science, an effective teaching method significant in that it regarded the creative process as being virtuous.

This summer I met many artists active in traditional and religious art, instantly impressing on me an awareness of how multi-faceted these styles are. Here, tradition did not refer to the past but to creating anew. It is our aim to make FAAM a Museum that supports such activity.