A few years ago, I trekked to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar in Nepal. That was the beginning of a collection of paintings that I am still adding to, exploring the light, the changing weather and the overwhelming scale and stark beauty of the landscape through which we trekked. I painted every day of the trek, creating a visual diary of the trip, and I have returned to these images again and again as I continue to be fascinated by that spectacular landscape.

Starting in the lush lands around Lukla, with green steep-sided valleys and rushing white water, the land became gradually more barren, dustier and stonier, hugely spacious and dotted with settlements with their coloured metal roofs. The path frequently passed prayer wheels and stupas, and brightly coloured prayer flags were everywhere, simply part of the landscape. The rich intense blue of the sky gave way to swirling clouds blowing through in the late afternoons, by turns covering and revealing the soaring mountains around us. The vastness, brightness and clarity were unlike anything I have experienced before.

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