It's the late 1980s and inside a derelict farmhouse on the outskirts of Mount Gambier in South Australia, a reclusive, retired high school maths teacher begins constructing exquisite wooden boxes, each unique, their organic forms determined by the chunk of wood they came from.
The artist's name is Robert Martiensen, though he's never been to art school. He keeps his life as an artist a secret, avoids cameras and never exhibits or sells his work.
A solitary man with a brilliant mind, in retirement Martiensen retreats into the farmhouse he was raised in and begins working at a frenzied pace.
In just four years he makes about 2,500 small, bespoke wooden boxes, each one numbered and dated in sequence of their construction.
Then he picks up a paint brush and turns his hand to canvas.
Over the next 20 years, he paints relentlessly, mostly in secret, always puffing on a tobacco pipe. He works in themed series, exploring an idea or a style in rapid repetition, sometimes painting 40 versions on a theme, then moving on.
Few people are invited into his home aside from a favourite niece. His brother-in-law is allowed onto his verandah.
Nobody sees the library of art books he accrues or his own artworks beginning to pile up. They're stuffed into cupboards, piled in tall towers on the floor and crammed into a garage.
The extent of Martiensen's artistic production is only discovered in 2007, when the recluse is found dead in his farmhouse, surrounded by more than 7,000 works of art.
Each artwork is named, dated and numbered in sequence.
They are abstract works but their titles tell the story of his life, his interests, explorations and anguish.
His sister, left to deal with her brother's deceased estate, thinks Martiensen's paintings are rubbish and immediately makes moves to get rid of them.
Discovery of a lifetime
Days after his death in 2007, the extraordinary discovery of Martiensen's artworks came across the desk of Elizabeth Arthur, a psychotherapist and art valuer who lives just across the state border, in Hamilton, Victoria.
She was with a patient at the time and was disturbed by the unwelcome interruption, usually only allowed for psychiatric emergencies.
"The secretary put through a call, which she doesn't do except in an emergency," Dr Arthur said.
Dr Arthur said the call was from an auctioneer for Elders in South Australia, a stock and land company that specialises in rural land and clearance sales.
"He said, 'I've got this estate to auction. And we've discovered a lot of paintings. When I say a lot of paintings, I mean thousands of paintings'," Dr Arthur said.
The auctioneer then told Dr Arthur that the paintings were about to be sold off, but he wasn't sure they should be.
"He said, 'The family has said they're rubbish, get rid of them. I don't think they are. The auction's in two days. Could you come over tomorrow and assess them?'" Dr Arthur said.
"So everything else was cancelled and off I went to South Australia."
When Dr Arthur arrived, the paintings had already been cleared from Martiensen's farmhouse and placed in a warehouse in Mount Gambier.
Though an experienced art valuer, she was unprepared for the scale of the collection.
"I went to the warehouse on the outskirts of the town and walked into that room, and was absolutely speechless," Dr Arthur said.
"There were these hundreds, thousands of paintings all around the walls and stacked in the middle. The most amazing sight."
In that instant, Dr Arthur knew that she was looking at something of great importance, despite the fact that the man who made the works was unknown to the art world.
Honouring the artist
Dr Arthur played an integral role in saving the artworks from being sold off piecemeal.
The collection had been snapped up at auction by Mount Gambier businessman Merv Heemskerk, who had planned to sell them in his bric-a-brac store.
Tracking him down, she implored him to keep the collection together and allow her to study them.
"When I finally tracked him down, he said, 'All I wanted was to make a quick buck. And you come over here and tell me not to start selling them,'" Dr Arthur said.
Eventually, they became unlikely friends and Mr Heemskerk placed the collection in a warehouse, giving Dr Arthur free access for a year.
Since then, she has spent many years studying, sorting and cataloguing Martiensen's works, interviewing his friends and family and eventually published a book about him in 2020.
The collection is now owned by Merv and Jenny Heemskerk and managed by Dr Arthur.
She says that all her past efforts are motivated by a desire to honour the artist. She describes Martiensen as an abstract artist of great skill, an "outsider artist with a brilliant mind".
"An outsider artist is one who has no training, no contact with the art world at all," she said.
"To have produced many paintings, he would have been extremely disciplined. So I think he slept very little, and ate very little.
"It's just such an achievement to produce thousands of brilliant works from a background that was not connected in any way to art."
Although a recluse, Martiensen had some contact with friends through his passion for sport. He was a great golfer in particular, and Dr Arthur believes that he still cared deeply about many societal issues.
"When you read the titles, which reflect the subject that he happened to be interested in, you can see that he was involved mentally with so many social issues," she sajd.
"Environmental issues, Aboriginal issues and ancient history, modern history, archaeology, music. There's just so much. It's all there, in the paintings."
As a psychotherapist, Dr Arthur has taken a deep interest in the unique and brilliant mind of Martiensen, but as an art valuer she said it was also clear that he had a masterful hand.
"The skill is quite amazing, quite amazing," she said.
"The sureness of his line is absolutely unwavering, just extraordinary.
"He fits into the modernist section. He was obviously very influenced by the great modernist painters of the 19th century: Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee."
Dr Arthur believes that the entire collection is of huge importance and should be acquired by a public gallery.
"It's a brilliant collection of work," Dr Arthur said.
"It should be kept as a collection, in an institution where it could be studied and works could be taken out for display.
"I think it is of such importance that it should be kept for the public rather than divided up."
Emotional response
For now, select works are on exhibit at Hamilton Gallery in western Victoria, where gallery director Joshua White says the audience reaction has been stunning.
"Some of the reactions have been really, really overwhelming for some of the audience members," he said.
"Particularly at the opening. We had a number of audience members who were crying in relation to the story behind the artist.
"It has had the gamut from seniors to young children who are engaging with the works and having an emotional response.
"I really love these works. Because yes, there is naivety to them, but there is a pure form of art coming through that he's communicating."
The exhibition closes at the end of October.