Artist Ben Johnson, who has won worldwide acclaim for his giant cityscapes, has set his meticulous eye on the city of York.

Johnson, whose works have included panoramas of Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Liverpool and most recently Trafalgar Square, has met with city leaders to show them his plans for a large, highly detailed and beautifully constructed record of York’s streets and buildings.

Working with draughtspeople, mathematicians, computer designers, architects and historians, Ben painstakingly draws details of every building which are then pieced together geometrically to show the whole city.

He also involves community groups in the city he moves into, his work becoming a massive investment by the whole city in the final painting.

His recent work for Liverpool when it became City of Culture took him years to complete but became such a huge talking point that towards the end of the project 45,000 people watched him at work in his Liverpool studio in only six weeks.

His other works include a huge cityscape of Hong Kong which took him three years to complete, and a four-part painting celebrating Muslim, Jewish and Christian roots through the architecture of Jerusalem.

This year he took on Trafalgar Square, with Canaletto as his inspiration, as artist in residence at the National Gallery, in a £200,000 project. Speaking to leaders in tourism, the arts, education, the city council, historians and archaeologists at the New School House Gallery he said he believed many people normally alienated by contemporary art become engaged and involved in his work.

Using drawings made from walking the streets and reproducing each building in fine detail, with the help of a team of assistants, and using the computer as a tool, he finally cuts adhesive stencils and uses a spray gun for his paintings.

The final look, he said to the group at the gallery, is of a painting which transcends its subject. People are absent. In Liverpool he offered “a city with no grime and no crime” an idealised version or a “model” of the city.

The York painting could be about ten feet tall. Johnson was invited to York by New School House Gallery owners Robert Teed and Paula Jackson to stimulate interest in the idea of creating and funding a York cityscape.

They believe such a project would add to York’s cultural appeal to an international audience.

Mr Teed said: “The painting, fantastic though it will be, will be just a start, a resource, acting as a springboard for neighbourhood projects.”