In November 1999, Julian Cooper, also a keen mountaineer, travelled to Kanchenjunga in Nepal. At 28,208 ft, it is the world's third highest mountain after Everest and K2. He returned with a series of studies on large canvases made on the spot in front of the mountain, which have served as source material along with photographs and recollections from memory, for a group of larger and more reflective canvases done in the studio. As such, they deal as much with the conceptual activity of painting as with the naturalistic depiction of place, and hover tantalisingly on the edge of abstraction.