Biography
Dongmei Liu (刘冬梅) is a Professor at the Institute of Tibetan Studies and a doctoral supervisor in art anthropology at Minzu University of China. She is currently a Visiting Scholar (2025–2026) at the Department of Art History and the Center for the Art of East Asia (CAEA), University of Chicago.
Liu is an art anthropologist whose research centers on thangka painting traditions, painterly lineages, and systems of artistic transmission in Tibetan Buddhist visual culture. Her work examines how iconometric rules, workshop practices, ritual requirements, and aesthetic judgment are learned, embodied, and debated among painters, and how these systems have been historically shaped from the Ming and Qing periods to the present.
Since 2008, Liu has carried out sustained ethnographic research in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), China, especially in Chamdo, Lhasa. Her fieldwork is distinguished by long-term apprenticeship-based engagement. Between 2008 and 2010, she formally trained under nationally and provincially recognized masters of the Karma Gardri tradition in Gama Township, Chamdo, completing extended participant observation through painting practice, iconometric drawing, and Tibetan-language interviews. From 2015 to 2016, she undertook further training in the Menri tradition in Lhasa, focusing on systems of iconometric transmission and their role in artistic evaluation and pedagogy. These experiences form the empirical foundation of her research on artistic knowledge as embodied practice.
Liu is the author of Rules and Creativity: Artistic Practice of Thangka Painters in Gama, Chamdo (2012) and Aesthetic Theory and Artistic Practice of Thangka Iconometry (2022), as well as earlier work on ritual painting traditions among Yi communities in southwest China. She has also co-edited several major volumes on thangka history, transmission, and heritage, including publications with the Cultural Relics Press and Social Sciences Academic Press. Her articles have appeared in leading journals such as Ethno-National Studies, Chinese Tibetology, and National Arts, with selected work receiving national awards, including the China Tibetology Research “Zhufeng Award” and the China Folk Literature and Art “Shanhua Award.”
Her current research continues to explore thangka painting as a living artistic practice, addressing broader questions in global art history concerning artistic normativity, craft pedagogy, and the social life of religious images. She is increasingly extending this inquiry to the Himalayan region, examining shared visual languages, training systems, and workshop practices across interconnected Buddhist communities. As a Visiting Scholar at CAEA, she is currently collaborating with Professor Wei-cheng Lin on a project titled Chinese Translation of Buddhist Iconometry Texts and Image Presentation in the Qing Dynasty Court. Alongside her research, she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on thangka hand-drawing, the history of Tibetan art, art anthropology, and ethnographic fieldwork methods.
Selected Publications & Research Outputs
Monographs & Edited Volumes
Rules and Creativity: Artistic Practice of Thangka Painters in Gama, Chamdo
Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House, 2012. (Monograph)
Aesthetic Theory and Artistic Practice of Thangka Iconometry
Beijing: Xueyuan Press, 2022. (Monograph)
An Anthropological Study of Bimo Painting among the Yi of Liangshan
Kunming: Yunnan University Press, 2015. (Monograph)
Ancient Remains and Contemporary Transmission of Karma Gardri Painting in Gama, Chamdo
Beijing: Cultural Relics Press, 2024. (Co-edited volume, Associate Editor)
Image, Text, and Narrative: Karma Gardri Thangka Painting in Chamdo
Beijing: Cultural Relics Press, 2020. (Co-edited volume, Associate Editor)
Transmission and Protection of Tibetan Thangka Painting
Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2018. (Co-authored volume)
Chinese Thangka Cultural Archives (Chamdo Volume)
Qingdao: Qingdao Publishing House, 2015. (Co-edited volume)
Selected Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
“Order and Integration: Ming-Dynasty Han–Tibetan Ritual Interaction Seen through Gama Monastery Music and Dance,” Chinese Tibetology, 2024, no. 6.
“Transmission of Thangka Iconometric Schemes: Embodied Memory and Practice,” Chinese Tibetology, 2022, no. 2.
“Art Objects and Symbolic Meaning in the History of Han–Tibetan Exchange: The Historical Recontextualization of a Brocade Thangka,” Ethno-National Studies, 2021, no. 2 (Reprinted in Renmin University Reprints: Ethnic Issues Studies)
“Seventy Years of Thangka Transmission and Development in Tibet,” Chinese Tibetology, 2019, no. 3.
“Aesthetic Practice in Thangka Painting: Iconometry as a Social Process of Evaluation,” National Arts, 2018, no. 4.
“Creativity within Rules: Artistic Practice of Thangka Iconometry,” National Arts, 2017, no. 2.
“Thangka Painting, Cultural Representation, and Identity in Cross-Cultural Interaction: Painter Communities in Gama, Chamdo,” Folk Culture Forum, 2017, no. 3. Earlier Publications (Yi Art & Comparative Studies)
“Self-Identification and the Projection of the Other: Bimo Painting and Ethnic Identity among the Yi,” Folk Culture Forum, 2011, no. 6.
“Image Recognition in Yi Bimo Painting of the Liangshan Region,” Folk Culture Forum, 2010, no. 4.
“Aesthetic Expression in Everyday Yi Clothing in Liangshan,” Journal of Southwest Minzu University, 2005, no. 6.
Translations (English–Chinese)
Eugenia Kisin & Fred R. Myers, “Challenging Art and Cultural Systems: Art Anthropology since the 1980s,” Translated by Dongmei Liu and Li Hang; copyedited by Renee Yu Jin. Folk Culture Forum 2023, no. 2.
Major Research Grants (Principal Investigator)
National Social Science Fund of China, Special Program on Rare and Endangered Disciplines: “Survey and Study of Karma Gardri Painting Remains from the Ming and Qing Periods” (19VJX173).
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Special Grant: “Transmission and Practice of Thangka Iconometry” (2016T90173).
National Social Science Fund of China (Western China Program): “Theory and Practice of Iconometry in Tibetan Buddhist Art” (14XZJ021).
Awards (Selected)
China Folk Literature and Art Shanhua Award (Academic Category), 2023.
China Tibetology Research Zhufeng Award, Third Prize, 2023.
Yunnan Provincial Award for Outstanding Achievement in Philosophy and Social Sciences, 2015.
Yu Tianxiu Award Nomination for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Sociology, 2012.
Selected Lectures (Video Recordings)
Multiple Life Worlds of Contemporary Thangka Painters
University Salon (Session 244), Lecture by Dongmei Liu;
Discussant: Shuang Yao; Moderator: Zhinong Li.
Online Lecture, December 14, 2025.
Video recording (YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24aOeySK3b4