Among the chip and lolly aisles at a corner store in Sydney, an artist emerges

It’s not often a trip to the corner store ends in a bottle of milk, a packet of chips and a painting from the store’s owner. Peter Jia, 62, owned the EzyMart convenience store in Darlinghurst for three years and came to art late in life. He started painting during the pandemic, initially to help his son with school art projects.

Jia displayed these paintings outside the Liverpool Street shop, not necessarily to sell, but inevitably the customers came. The first was the owner of a gallery in Potts Point, who bought one of his son’s paintings. And while his son’s artistic period was short-lived, Jia kept painting, mostly behind the counter in between serving customers.

His honest portraits of pets, local characters and landscapes attracted patrons from across Sydney and gained a loyal following on Instagram.

“I didn’t realise I had become famous,” he says. “People would walk in and say, ‘Hey Peter!’ and I wouldn’t even know their name.”

Born in Shanghai, Jia studied mechanical engineering at Jiao Tong University. He moved to Sydney in 1990 to learn English but found that financial concerns took precedence over schooling. What ensued was a series of odd jobs – a cleaner at a construction factory and then St Vincent’s Hospital, doing stocktake at an office supplies shop, and later working as a machine technician.

Jia recounts these early days fondly. “I knew I could draw better than any of those draftsmen, and so I asked if I could try,” he says.

Brodie Cullen, a student at the National Art School at the time, struck up a rapport with Jia and helped organise a series of art shows at the convenience store. Three shows were held within the walls of the EzyMart between November 2020 and April 2021. Jia’s paintings sat alongside those by students and teachers from the school, bumping up against chip packets and nestled among lolly bags.

“At the first Ezy art show it was mainly art students and people that were aware of Peter and his art,” Cullen says. “Also, regular people [trying] to buy smokes or their groceries.

“But the second and third were filled with people who were locals that had heard of the legend.”

With the help of artist Jackson Farley, Jia was set to have a show at Darlinghurst’s Stanley Street Gallery. That show was postponed due to the pandemic, but the exhibition took place online. In November last year, Jia participated in a group show at Sheffer Gallery in Darlington. Curated by Damien Minton, “Good Grief” was a “group exhibition celebrating Snoopy and Peanuts”.

In an industry notorious for its elitism, Jia’s entry into the art world is somewhat of an anomaly. Merilyn Bailey and Liza Feeney, the directors of Stanley Street Gallery, say they’re always looking to support up and coming artists and Jia was no different.

Filmmaker Jane Thomson produced a documentary on Peter in 2020 that she hopes will be released this year. She spent three months observing Jia in the shop, including with a homeless man named Josh.

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“I knew when I met Peter, like so many others who have been lucky enough to spend time with him, that he was no ordinary man,” she says. “Peter has an unwavering optimism, warmth and kindness that is captivating and he really is one special human.”

Today, Jia works in aged care homes, brushing clients’ teeth, helping them shower, or get dressed, and driving for ride-share service Uber on the side. “Helping other people … is where true happiness comes from,” he says.

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