Gerelkhuu Ganbold | Ганболдын Гэрэлхүү

Gerelkhuu Ganbold, born in Mongolia in 1988, is a contemporary artist who combines traditional Mongolian painting with modern elements. He uses the Mongol Zurag technique to depict themes such as inner conflicts of identity and the tension between tradition and modernity. His works are aesthetically complex masterpieces full of symbols and references.
His work "Exoplanet", 2020, is something like the "quintessence", to use an alchemical term, of Mongolian culture and organizational structure in relation to the West: from right to left (East to West), a tightly organized horde rides and absorbs everything it encounters in terms of cultural and scientific content. The picture thus becomes a synopsis of the cultural beginnings of the Khaan system, which had a very rational organizational and social structure and integrated diverse knowledge systems from shamanistic, lamaistic and various Christian systems, right up to today's methods of knowledge. "Exoplanet" is an encyclopedia that has become a picture.

Ganbold studied fine arts at the Mongolian University of Arts and Culture in Ulaanbaatar and has had solo exhibitions at the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts and the 976 Art Gallery. He has participated in group exhibitions at the National Modern Art Gallery and the UMA Art Gallery in Ulaanbaatar, the Fukuoka Triennial in Japan, in New Mexico, USA, and at the Schoeni Art Gallery Hong Kong.
This year, 2024, he is taking part in the Biennale di Venezia.

His paintings, often intensely colorful and rich in detail, tell stories about time and legends that are reminiscent of Western romantic art and show subtle influences of contemporary Japanese manga and video games. One well-known work, "Soldiers Who Don't Know Themselves" (2013), depicts horsemen in a desert and addresses Mongolia's epic past as well as the uncertainty of life in a rapidly changing society. Ganbold comments on and observes the fragility of a changing society, the balance of urban life and the loss of tradition.