It is just after sunrise, and the sky above the valley is filling with balloons. They rise one after another from somewhere beyond the hills, drifting slowly upward on the still morning air, until there are dozens of them hanging in the pale mint sky like ornaments.
The largest floats near the upper left, close enough to see its stripes of cobalt and mustard and the small basket swinging beneath it. Behind it, others in coral and cream, teal and gold, recede into the distance, growing smaller and fainter until the farthest are only tiny specks of colour near the horizon.
Below them stretches a valley unlike any other. Tall rounded chimneys of soft stone rise from the ground, shaped by wind and rain over thousands of years into cones and towers. Many of them are hollowed out, with small dark windows and doorways carved into their sides, the old homes and chapels of people who lived inside the rock.
The sun sits low on the right, a soft pale disc just above the far ridges, and its light sends long lilac shadows stretching across the valley floor from every stone tower. The fields between them glow peach and cream, and a pale path winds through them toward us, passing a few slender poplars standing upright like exclamation marks.
The painting is made in the style of a 1930s Art Deco travel poster, with flat planes of colour, smooth gradients and clean, simplified shapes. Details are kept to a minimum and every element is placed with care. The result is bright, calm and full of the particular optimism of an early morning when the whole world seems to be lifting off the ground.