Inside the garage of a ranch home in Austin, Indiana, an easel sits in the middle of the concrete floor. Nearby, paint containers sit on a table, not for home projects or walls but for creating.

There are several pieces of finished artwork hanging on the wall where normally you’d find yard tools.

With a light touch, Brian Johnson dabs his brush into a chewing tobacco container filled with paint. His large hand gently dips and sways as he finishes painting a rural sunset scene on a country road near his home. A blaze of colors creates a dreamy setting.

It’s an image not normally associated with Austin, the small town that became infamous a few years ago for its HIV crisis and drug addiction. Driving through the town, there’s plenty of homes proudly kept tidy. But among them, there might be an abandoned home next door, windows boarded up.

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At 33, Johnson has been painting for around four years. In his younger days, his big frame was perfect for playing basketball. And in small-town Indiana, high school basketball on winter Friday and Saturday nights still draws hundreds, if not thousands, to gyms.

He played for Austin High School and hoped to play in college. But he became addicted to painkillers such as Oxycontin and hydrocodone after rupturing three discs in his back. At first, the painkillers “helped me stabilize in a way.” But he says a doctor made it too easy for him to continue with the prescription drugs.

He finished high school but not the drug use. It continued through his first year of college, and he eventually dropped out. The loss of his girlfriend hurt. “I just broke down,” he said. “I spiraled into an abyss of awfulness. Skin crawls. Chills. You’re hooked.”

He painted while addicted but never produced anything he liked. He eventually stopped using painkillers after he had surgery on his back. A counselor on LifeSpring suggested he start painting again, something he did when he was a teenager.

“I found a purpose,” Johnson said. “The clarity that is gained through painting is life-altering.”

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His first painting – which he calls “My cookie jars” – shows a scene of pills and alcohol. Something he says was a familiar scene to him. And Austin.

Snapping a photo with his phone, he would start painting scenes of everyday life in Austin and Scott County. A country road at sunset. The lunchtime setting at the small cafe diner inside the Hancock’s Drug Store in Scottsburg.

“He has a natural ability to produce a very powerful image,” said John Michael Carter, the president of the Oil Painters of America.

Carter said some of Johnson’s work reminds him of German expressionist landscape painters. Johnson, who saw Carter for feedback, is still in his formative years as a painter.

“He’s a bit unique," Carter said. "I’ve tried to encourage him to not be like the other painters in the area.”

“Austin is a dark place,” Johnson said. To some people outside the area, “it’s just an ugly, little town. But I can step outside that door and find something beautiful.”

Matt Stone: 502-582-4216; mstone@courier-journal.com; Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/matts Brian Johnson can be reached at bchjohnsonart@gmail.com