Sonam Dolma was born in Kongpo, Tibet (today Kongpo, Gongbo"gyamda County, Nyingchi Prefecture, Tibetan Autonomous Region, China), as the daughter of Kunsang (Mola) Wangmo, a former Bhikkhuni, and Tsering. Sonam grew up nearby Dharamsala respectively Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, during the Sino-Indian War in autumn 1962, the family had to move to Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, where Sonam was waitressing in a Tibetan restaurant.
Sonam Dolma Brauen began her training as artist at the Art School Bern and was educated by Arthur Freuler, Leopold Schropp, Mariann Bissegger, and Serge Fausto Sommer. She moved to New York City in 2008, where she lived for four years in Manhattan, New York City. Her studio was located in Long Island City.
Thenafter she stayed for a while in the United States of America, in of Korea, Italy and went back to Switzerland.
Her paintings, sculptures and installations are exhibited in Germany, Italy, in the Netherlands, South of Korea, Switzerland and in the United States of America. The family moved from eastern Tibet when the 14th Dalai Lama refuged in 1959 to Dharamsala in northern India. One day she served tea to a Swiss from Bern, an ethnologist, fascinated by the Tibetan culture. Settled in Bern, she learnt Swiss-German.
Education Personal life Married to the Swiss ethnologist Martin Brauen, Sonam Dolma"s daughter Yangzom Brauen (born in 1981) is a Swiss-Tibetan actress, writer (Eisenvogel) and director (Who Killed Johnny), Sonam"s son Tashi Brauen is also an artist.
Installations After moving to New York City, Brauen began working more with installations using materials and objects like used monk robes from Asia, plaster, empty amunition shells. Provocative works utilize teeth and used ammunition in pieces that comment on contemporary society.
Her installations express ongoing themes that preoccupy her: Machoism and its relation to power, money and war. And the political situation in her home country Tibet.
Critics The art scope magazine claims, one would think, given Dolma’s origins.. that her art would reflect overtly political or nationalist themes.
Rather, Dolma’s wall-spanning acrylics and floor-spanning installations tackle a thoroughly rougher territory: the expanse of cultural folly and the crimes of emotion. Eisenvogel ("Iron Bird"), her daughter"s 2009 novel, is dedicated to Sonam Dolma"s mother Kunsang and her escape from Tibet. The book tells about Yangzom"s youth and their common life in exile, and became a bestseller in the German-speaking coutries.
lieutenant was later published in English as Across Many Mountains.
