Give Us Some Higher Mountains
May - October 2021
The title is from a poem written in reaction to a photograph of Mount Everest's summit crowded with dozens of climbers. Our highest mountain, sacred for so long, had become the most trafficked and polluted peak on earth.
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Give Us Some Higher Mountains 1
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Give Us Some Higher Mountains 2
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Give Us Some Higher Mountains 3
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Give Us Some Higher Mountains 5
This series of 5 panels was inspired by a an ink painting by Fan Kuan, a Chinese painter of the Song Dynasty. In his Travelers among Mountains and Streams, he depicts a mountain rising above the human realm, sacred, other, and inaccessible. His mountain is devoid of bridges, trails, and temples, breaking with Chinese landscape tradition. A band of mist separates the mountain from human activity.
Title: Give Us Some Higher Mountains
Dimensions: Five panels of 57" x 27" each
Medium: :graphite dust, litho ink, oil paint, pencil, levigator on Formica panel
Date: May 29 to October6, 2021