For the time being the “Top of the World” series is finished. It consists of 11 portraits of climbers on Mount Everest and two landscapes.

Some of the climbers summitted and successfully descended and some of them died. A later enhancement of the series is possible, espacially by the climbers who abandoned their summit attempt to help others. But for the near future I will investigate others things related to Mount Everest.

This series shows a mountain by describing its coldness, steepness, scantiness – its extremes by painting. The heavy exposure the mountain experiences in the public leads to a challenging tourism for both – nature and people.

Almost unreal personal relations or “none-relations” become apparent with intensive studies of the subject. On the following pages some of them are highlighted.

All pictures of the series:

[Zeige als Diashow]

Concept:

Mount Everest is a symbol for extremes. It stands for the most dangerous activity men can dare to do on our planet, for the harshest conditions and for privations to suffer.

However, it is not. Like the white mountains – Mount Blanc and Dhaulagiri both counted as highest mountain on earth in short time periods – Mount Everest is changing its meaning. Many tourists visits its base camps every year and lots of mountaineers try to and succeed to summit. There are guided tours to the mountain which offer a high probability to reach once goal.

For me the mountain stands for people who look for their boundaries. Mount Everest is a symbol for personal fates and for philosophical dilemmas:

Story:

Some of the men and women I painted died on Mount Everest. David Sharp’s death is the most discussed in years but each of the fates of Morgan Boisson, Vitor Negrete,  Marko Lihteneker, Fran Arsentiev or Peter Kinloch tells a story. Other climbers (like Untitled (Climbers)) or the word-record-summitteer Apa Sherpa succeeded or helped others. Many of the mountaineers on Mount Everest need to give up or even can be lucky to have survived – Lincoln Hall and Usha Bista would not be alive without the help of others challenging the summit.

For me, the Green Boot Cave sums up many factors – it is a landmark, and it is a grave. The painting Storm is another extension of the series.

This post is also available in: German