Otgontenger: Storehouses of the Snow

BYAMBAJARGAL

Oil on canvas

40 x 30cm

2020

Capped with a permanent glacier, Otgontenger (Mongolian for “youngest sky”) is the highest peak of the Khangai Range. Its south face is the most extensive granite wall in Mongolia. Despite the rocky landscape, the land is rich with herbs and fruit —blackberries, blueberries and seabuckthorn, being well watered by the melting snow accumulated during the long, harsh months of winter.

The artist depicts the serenity of its less-seen north face surrounded by lustrous steppes blanketed in deep snow, the billowing snowdrifts fringed by quiet forests sheltering deer, bear and wild boar. "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen where the hail is stored…?” (Job 38:22) “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth… So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)