The Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, Australia
April 3rd 2008 - May 11th 2008

The theme of the exhibition is mountains that have particular significance for me personally. Seven are included and a brief comment below is given on each.

Mount Carrara - Antarctica
In the Antarctic Summer of 2001/2002 I was selected as an official visiting artist with the British Antarctic Survey. During this eight week visit, the highlight was to camp on the Antarctic plateau at latitude 75 degrees south. There were just three of us; the nearest people to us were over 1000 km away. The landscape, seemingly stretching away forever, was dominated by Mt Carrara. Its altitude is 1770 metres, with the majority of the mountain being below the icecap. As it was light 24 hours a day, I lived constantly with the image of the mountain before me.

Mont Lassois - Burgundy, France
I was invited to exhibit at the Musée de Châtillonais in Châtillon-Sur-Seine in 2002. The exhibition was entitled The Tin Route, based on the route by which the 5th Century BC Greeks imported tin from Cornwall to the Mediterranean. The tin was taken up the Seine to the Celtic city of Vix, which was on top of Mont Lassois. No trace of this ancient city exists except tombs in the valley below. This mount, though not particularly high, dominates the plains of what is now North Burgundy. With Vix on its flat peak, Mt Lassois was one of the most important settlements in all of what is now France.

Mont Ventoux - Vaucluse, France
I see Mont Ventoux from my studio in Ménerbes, and have lived for over 30 years with the image of the mountain rising about the Plateau of Vaucluse. Mont Ventoux, at 1,909 metres, dominates a huge area of Provence. It is detached from the Alps, and sits in isolation, completely apart from other peaks.

It was climbed by Petrarch in 1336, who wrote of it:

"To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum [windy]. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer."

This is thought to be the first record of anyone climbing a peak purely for the pleasure and the view. As you go around the mountain the aspect keeps changing, seeing gradual slopes to the south and sheer sides to the north. The paintings show the mountain from differing aspects at different seasons.

Luberon - Vaucluse, France
Just as Mt Ventoux dominates the view to the north of Ménerbes, the southern view is dominated by the Luberon. Indeed Ménerbes, where I have been for over 30 years, seems to emerge from the slopes of the Luberon. Unlike all the other mountains in the exhibition, it has no pronounced peak, but is a long ridge with a series of gorges. This gives it dramatic forms in different lights and seasons. I include it because it is the mountain I see the most, and live with for part of every year.

Suilven - Assynt, Scotland
Suilven, at 731 metres, is the most dramatic of a series of peaks that rise out of a landscape of Lewisian Gneiss. This rock, at 2900 million years, is one of the oldest. It was later overlaid with a covering of sandstone. The mountains were then created 10,000 years ago by subtraction, the erosion of the sandstone by glaciers, leaving just a few steep peaks. Of all the landscapes, this is perhaps the one that leaves the strongest impact on me - the isolated peaks sitting on the waves of the ancient gneiss.

Buachaille Etive Mor - Highlands, Scotland
Buachaille Etive Mor sits at the western edge of Rannoch Moor, guarding as it were, the entrance to Glen Coe. Rannoch Moor is a bleak extensive granite plateau, at the heart of the Scottish Highlands. As you walk across the moor, the pyramid of Buachaille Etive Mor dominates the land. I have been there a dozen or more times, in all seasons, drawn by both the bleakness of the moor, and the dominating form of the mountain.

Silbury - Wiltshire, England
Silbury is a man made ‘mountain’, dating from around 2500BC and is Europe’s largest prehistoric earthwork. Its purpose is unknown. Silbury is not a tomb, unlike so many other man made mounds. But clearly it had a particular significance to those who built it, as it was a massive task to construct. It is the visual centre of a complex of ancient monuments, including the great stone circles of Avebury. Though not large, some 140ft high, its perfect conical form and position in the landscape has a great impact even to this day, and it has always fascinated me.

Philip Hughes
February 2008