Stepping into “From Clay to Digital”, the new exhibition by Mongolian Sculptor and Educator G.Logiiraz, feels like entering both a studio and a temple. Running until September 14 at the Fine Arts Zanabazar Museum, the exhibition unfolds as a sweeping narrative of an artist’s transformation, tracing his path from the grounded textures of clay to the luminous surfaces of digital art.
His journey began in the early 1990s at the “Green Horse” School of Contemporary Art in Ulaanbaatar, where he immersed himself in sculpture and the language of form. His early works, such as the piece “Manal” created in 1997, reveal a young artist deeply engaged with Mongolia’s artistic traditions. That same year, however, he turned inward, entering Bakula Rinpoche’s Betub Monastery to study Buddhist teachings and philosophy. His pursuit was not only aesthetic but spiritual, as he sought to understand the roots of Buddhist art by learning both its philosophy and its meticulous techniques. He soon began creating sculptures in the traditional style, absorbing centuries of ritual knowledge while shaping them with his own hands.
This commitment to merging tradition with creativity continued for years. In 2011, during a visit to Nepal, G.Logiiraz produced a modern tanka, a Buddhist painting that echoed the sacred forms of the past while carrying a distinctly contemporary voice. It was a continuation of a vision he had carried since art school to bring Buddhist art into dialogue with modern content, to allow tradition to breathe in the present.
The turning point came during his time at the Royal Swedish Academy in 2008, where he taught and studied. By then, he was no longer satisfied with clay and paper alone. He began questioning how art could exist in a future shaped by technology, and these reflections led him to experiment with digital modeling, three-dimensional techniques, and eventually artificial intelligence. Over the last decade, this exploration has produced works that reimagine traditional idols through the lens of digital precision. His most recent piece, “Buddha’s Head” (2025), is both an homage to ancient sacred art and a radical departure, shimmering in the new language of pixels and code.
What makes “From Clay to Digital” striking is not just the contrast between materials, but the continuity of vision that runs through it all. The sculptures, the Buddhist-inspired works, and the digital creations are not isolated chapters but threads of one story. G.Logiiraz has never abandoned tradition. Instead, he has reshaped it, allowing the old and the new to converse across time and space. His goal, to combine Buddhist art with contemporary content, is realized here in ways that feel both faithful and forward-looking.
For visitors, the exhibition is a meditation on the future of creativity itself, asking how artists can honor the past while engaging with the possibilities of technology. For the artist, the answer lies in evolution without erasure, in transformation that remains grounded in essence.
“Art cannot remain fixed. It must evolve with the tools and the times, without losing its spirit,” he has reflected.
In “From Clay to Digital”, that spirit is palpable. It rises from clay, it glows in pigment, and it pulses in the digital screen.
