Oil on linen, 130cm x 200cm x 3.7cm  

The Terraces of Patallacta in the Morning Light invites the viewer into a moment suspended between time and transcendence. The painting is not simply a depiction of the Andean ruins but a portal into the communion between humanity, landscape, and the divine. Through luminous washes which evoke early light, Heaton bathes the terraces in a golden glow, transforming architectural relics of the Inca into conduits of spirituality. This work exemplifies Heaton’s lifelong pursuit of capturing nature’s primal forces and our most ancient interactions with the land—a quest rooted deeply in spiritual reflection and communion with elements larger than ourselves. Unlike a clinical archaeological record, these terraces become a meeting place between memory and myth, where moss-soft stone meets the breath of dawn.

Drawing upon his background as both mountaineer and artist, Heaton often ventures into remote natural frontiers to experience places with full physical and spiritual immersion  . Though the source of this particular scene may be his own photographs, Heaton’s technique blends the documentary with the visionary, echoing his approach to the Himalayas, the Dolomites, and other remote ranges. The morning light here is more than visual—it is a symbol of awakening and subtle revelation, a softly penetrating awareness that illuminates both land and psyche. He frames Patallacta’s terraces not as silent relics, but as thresholds to the sacred, suspended between earth’s history and human imagination.

Heaton’s work thrives in the tension between realism and the hallucinatory, romantic and transcendent. This painting embodies that balance: the detailed geometry of the terraces anchors us in place, while the radiance evokes the intangible, hinting at emotions and longings that lie just beyond perception. There is also a quiet lament woven through the image—an elegy to the landscapes we no longer inhabit directly, but yearn for. In this, Heaton crafts a modern Romanticism grounded in ecological consciousness and spiritual memory, reminding us of our own impermanence and the enduring power of the natural world.