Nomin Bold
Born 1982, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Ochirbold Ayurzana
Born 1976, Sukhbaatar Province, Mongolia

Live and work in Ulaanbaatar

The cup of life 2023 is an imposing curtain of grinning skulls that combines painter Nomin Bold’s use of Buddhist symbolism with sculptor Ochirbold Ayurzana’s practice as a metalworker. Of commanding scale and panoramic format, the work consists of almost 2000 cast-metal skulls suspended on taut wires, fixed floor to ceiling.

For the artists, skulls are ‘life cups’: vessels for human souls and consciousness that are confined within the human form. They represent subcultural currency and a convergence of European and Buddhist aesthetic traditions, where the skull is a memento mori — a reminder of mortality — and a talisman warning against an attachment to selfhood.

Nomin and Ochirbold articulate deep connections with Mongolia’s cultural heritage through an internationally legible artistic language, seeking broader conversations while situating their work’s cosmic propositions determinedly in the here and now.