Ladakh

These paintings were first shown in 1997 at MOMA Wales, in an exhibition called Between two worlds, opened by Marina Vaizey. A second, larger exhibition: Paintings of Ladakh was shown in Oxford and Ely in 1999. Most of the paintings are now in private collections in Britain, Italy and the United States. Simon first visited Ladakh in 1989 and returned there as leader of a cultural tour in 1996. Of his first impressions he wrote: 'The visitor on arrival, experiences this sense of a limbo-land midway between the clouds and terra firma, where the shortest walk is always upwards and leaves one with dry nostrils and gasping for breath. The thin air exposes the landscape; the light cuts its edges like a laser. Every vertiginous view is as if seen from an aircraft window.'

Ladakh Gallery