Artist | Painter, Sculptor
| | A Brief History Bertrand Cayla was born in 1954 in Sallanches, Haute Savoie, France. In 1972 he was accepted into the ‘Academie des Beaux-Arts de Paris’ where he studied drawing for 2 months. He continued to train as a self-taught artist in sculpture and painting. During the 1980’s he created a series of small sculptures for a ceramist in Haute-Savoie. He later worked in the textile industry in Paris as a designer. Inspired by Buddhist philosophy he took ordination in 1992 and for the next 12 years he lived as a Tibetan Buddhist monk at Nalanda Monastery near Lavaur, France. It was during this time he created a 1m high Kadampa Stupa and established the tsa-tsa mould collection at the monastery which still produces statues and moulds for centres and practitioners all over the world. He assisted Peter Griffin in creating the large Buddha statue at Jamyang Centre in London. Between 2001 and 2006, at the request of Lama Zopa RInpoche, he created a large 3m10 high statue of Green Tara, a female aspect of the Buddha. In June 2008 it was exhibited at the aFiac Modern Art Festival TRANS RITUELS 2. In July 2009 the bronze cast of the statue was taken to it's mountaintop setting at Osel Ling Retreat Centre in the Alpujarra mountains near Granada on the South face of the Sierra Nevada in Spain. In 2006 he was commissioned to make and paint a life size sculpture of the Tibetan king, King Songtsen Gampo for the altar at Maitripa Univeristy, Portland, Oregon USA. During 2007 he spent time training in oil painting with a well known and much experienced English artist who shared with him his knowledge and techniques, during which time he painted a series of large oil on canvas of Roses, Animal Life and Still Life. Bertrand recently completed a a life size clay sculpture of Ganapati, a Buddhist deity, which is being 3D scanned and enlarged to create a 4m high resin statue. which will then be painted. The statue is due to arrive at Nalanda Monastery in October 2011. His most recently comleted work is a large oil on canvas 'tanka' of Lama Tsong Khapa which can be seen in the main temple at Nalanda. He is currently working on an oil painting tankha of Padmasambhava. Bertrand Cayla still lives in close to Nalanda Monastery in the Tarn, France. contact Bertrand Cayla 53 rue Jean Jaures, 81500 Labastide St Georges, France +33 (0)6 30 01 49 65 . |