Oil painting on linen
Size: 76 H x 86 W x 2 cm

This painting is of one of the party members of a climbing expedition to Mt Baruntse. The Climber is tired and struggling up a difficult fixed line. As a mountaineer Alex, studies and researches themes directly. He often thinks nothing of walking and climbing to remote places in the Himalaya or Alps to cast an eye on his artistic prey. This paintings look out from the summits of Mera Peak in Nepal and contemplate the beyond. In this most recent body of work there has been a shift in pallet colour to muted greys offset by florescent pinks and greens. Such a choice serves to place the viewer as a climber in the highest zone of the Himalayas where existence is only ever perceived through tinted lenses changing all light to hyper-colour vibrant and raised contrast levels. One is overwhelmed by the effects of oxygen depletion and dizziness therefore perception becomes about euphoria mixed with intense self-preservation. These paintings are sometimes left in a state of incompletion. The unresolved passages reflect the painting process its self as a journey which may be more important that the finished destination. Much in the same way as the process of climbing a mountain can be discovery of what is revealed within as much as or perhaps more than without, that being on a summit for example. Figures populate these paintings some in double exposure some with voids in them. Such devices act as metaphors to the dispersed sense of self as one ascends higher altitudes. Prayer flags blow in the wind and break apart literally in the brush strokes. These link and act as ceremonial reminders of the real world of family, friends back home and what is at stake in the spiritual ladder world. Puja ceremonies are conducted to appease the mountain deities and bring safe passage whilst scaling the mountain

Keywords: peak, summit, climber, Nepal, mountaineering