Painting The Mountains

The adage goes that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and Painting the Mountains is a testament to that. Through a journey into the heart of one of the most unpredictable mountain ranges in the world, we dive into the passionate gaze of Matthew. A photographer and journalist, he fell in love with El Chaltén, an iconic place at the foot of the Fitz Roy massif in Argentine Patagonia.

In this village, as mythical as it is isolated, lives a community of mountain lovers who engage with the mountain in its rawest and most authentic form, embracing its hostile nature as much as its beauty. The weather conditions and topography make skiing here particularly demanding and often extreme. This unique community of skiers is Matthew’s favorite subject. For several years, he has dedicated his autumns to documenting and highlighting the evolution of skiing in this part of the world. During each of his visits, he immerses himself in the local lifestyle for several weeks to capture its essence.

This season, a team of French skiers comprising Aurel Lardy, Vivian Bruchez, and Jules Socié arrives with the ambition to pioneer new ski lines in the granite walls of Fitz Roy. Where ropes are typically used for climbing, they want to place their skis and carve turns. Their unique skiing visions offer Matthew a chance to photograph the unprecedented, documenting extreme steep skiing, or ‘big wall skiing’.