The paintings occupy bedrooms. Stacks of drawings threaten to topple over. Canvases are lined up across the lounge room like house guests.
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Jasmine Johnson and her daughter Ari share their home with over two thousand works of art.
Favourite works by Jasmine’s father, Lithgow artist Chris Johnson, grace his former studio’s walls and mantles.
“I had no idea what was in here,” Ms Johnson said.
“I’d seen bits and pieces but I had no idea what range he had within his work. It’s been very exciting to sort through it room by room.”
Chris Johnson, a well-loved Lithgow artist, passed away in Sydney in November 2015.
He passed in absence of the local landscapes that populated his paintings and the community that most frequently spied his works.
“He died in Sydney, so friends and people who did know him wanted to have something in recognition of him, something to celebrate his life and work,” Ms Johnson said.
She has been curating a retrospective exhibition to give her father the local send off many hanker for.
“He did all the shows and the Portland Art Prize and some group shows but he didn’t manage to do solo exhibitions while he was in Lithgow,” she said.
“A lot of people don’t know about the broad spectrum of all of his work, the earlier period of work and the work he did up until he died.
“There are some works where you look at them and you can see all the years of painting, of training his eye and using colour. They are just so polished.”
The exhibition, opening on Saturday, May 6, at Eskbank House, will show a selection of works created over Mr Johnson’s lifetime.
“I have gone through all his work and anything that excites me and makes me feel inspired I have grabbed it,” Ms Johnson said.
The opening on Saturday afternoon will also feature one of Mr Johnson’s other loves, the Lithgow City Band, who will be playing from 2pm.
Before moving to Lithgow over two decades ago, Mr Johnson lived in Sydney where he worked in advertising and then as a photographer on a metropolitan newspaper.
“His family is a completely artistic family. His dad was an illustrator for women’s magazines.The kids would sit around the kitchen table and compete to do the best drawings,” Ms Johnson said.
“I think he thought, ‘Ok, despite the fact I am earning good money as a newspaper photographer I am not fulfilling my artistic intent, pure kind of art.’
“Then he spent the rest of his life dedicated to drawing and perfecting his craft.”
Mr Johnson moved to Lithgow with a group of artists in the ‘90s and had lived in his studio for 17 years before he died.
“Him and mum used to do these trips up to Leura and through all those areas, camping and taking photos and painting plein air along the way. Once he moved up here he discovered the landscapes, he was really inspired by the landscapes and the rock architecture,” Ms Johnson said.
One artist who remembers what it was like to work with the ‘intensely dedicated’ Chris Johnson is his granddaughter, Ari.
“They used to sit and paint together, they made paper giraffes and elephants, just get paint everywhere and have a great time,” Ms Johnson said.
”He was often painting things that were quite amazing.”
