Acrylic on recycled tin cooking oil can

31cm by 40cm by 36cm

This work is from the can series Alex made for his planned residency in Namche Bazaar, Nepal. Alex had been given the brief to make art from waste which accumulates on Mount Everest. The project was about up-cycling rubbish to create sculptures of the surrounding himalayan mountains. Alex selects from the waste, a can that has features resembling part of a mountain or glacier. He then goes on to shape them more with hammers and finally builds up layers of paint to resemble the unique forms of the landscape such as glaciers and crevasses. The work comments on the fragile nature of the most sublime region of our planet, therefore the work responds to the need for conservation and pollution reduction. Cholatse is connected to Taboche (6,501m) by a long ridge, the Chola glacier descends off the east face. The north and east faces of Cholatse can be seen from Dughla, on the trail to Mount Everest base camp. In Tibetan 'cho' is lake, 'la' is pass, and 'tse' is peak. So Cholatse means literally "lake pass peak".