Seta Manoukian

Seta Manoukian (1945) is a Lebanese painter of Armenian descent.

Seta Manoukian was born into a family of Armenian origin in Beirut in 1945. Although she is not part of the generation that experienced the genocide, she belongs to the Armenian diaspora. At seventeen, she won first prize in a art show, consisting of a three month scholarship to Perugia courtesy of the Italian Embassy in Beirut. Later on, she graduated from the accademia Di Belle Arti in Rome. Upon her return, she became a rising figure on the burgeoning Beirut scene. For two decades she created some of the most singular and striking paintings ever seen in Lebanon.

In 1975 the civil war breaks out in Lebanon just as Seta begins teaching at the Lebanese University in Beirut. She starts to teach painting to children in deprived neighborhoods in Beirut, "Lebanese Children And The War" is published by Dar Al Farabi publishers. And "Tache Rouge et Blue", by the League for Lebanese Women's Rights.

In 1985 She moves to Los Angeles, where she continues her work as an artist.

In 2000 she joins a Buddhist Theravada Temple in Los Angeles, and in 2005 is ordained as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka. The name Mother Sela is given to her by her teacher Pemasiri Hamdruo. She stays in Sri Lanka In a retreat center for ten month, and in 2006 lives in south India near Bangalore for a year and half.

In 2007 she meets Lama Chodak Gyatso Nubpa Rimpoche from the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism in LA. Rimpoche as her root Lama gives her the name Ani Pema Tsultrim Drolma. The retreat center Pema Dawa is in Tehachapi California where she goes very often for retreats till today.

2016 Seta Manoukian as Ani Pema Drolma is ready to paint again after ten years of full devotion to Buddhist teachings and practice. Provided by Wikipedia