An exhibition at Springwood’s Braemer Gallery tells a story that at times Sydney-based artist Dinah Johanson thought she would not be around to tell.
Dinah, with her mountaineer husband Neill, survived the devastating earthquake in Nepal in 2015 and the aftershocks that followed in the harrowing six days it took to escape from near Everest base camp.
The result is Earth – inspired by Nepal and made possible by the Blue Mountains where she completed most of her bushwalking training.
“It was a personal goal for me [to trek from Lukla to Everest Base Camp]. I had never done anything that extreme at that altitude [5,200 metres]. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, why Neill kept going back to them.”
A series of events culminated in their survival. Snow and slow walkers in their group forced them to abandon plans to be at Everest Base Camp for Anzac Day.
On that day a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Nepal, the country’s worst natural disaster in 80 years.
“Five sherpas from Adventure Consultants were killed in the avalanche [that followed the quake] – right where we were planning to meet them that morning... The mountains were moving,” she said.
“Our group was lucky to be alive. The land fell away underneath them… Some of our group ... arrived completely traumatised, even more so than us. It was a full-on evacuation ... six days until we got back to Kathmandu. I will never get in a helicopter again. It was very scary, very scary.
“[But] the Nepalese were fantastic, their houses had fallen down, they knew people who were dead and they still set up food tents for us. They are quite a remarkable people in dealing with adversity and so kind.”
The experience had a “profound effect” on the Johansons. Neill, an architect, is in the process of rebuilding earthquake-proof schools through the Australian Himalayan Foundation. Dinah has recovered from vertigo and finished the exhibition.
“The neurosurgeon I saw said I had trauma-induced vertigo. I would walk into a room and go 45 degrees, I was all over the shop.” She recovered through treatment and by watching the footage her husband had taken as part of a film produced about the event.
“The paintings I did after the earthquake are my attempt to depict visually my own emotional upheaval. When I began this series … I was attempting to depict the earth’s forces from the safety of distant time. That idea was literally upended by my personal experience. The ground is not as solid as I thought. But I am still in awe of mountains.”
Earth is at Braemar, Springwood, in July.