Each artist was asked the following questions. These notes are a precis of their responses:

• Where were you born and in what year?
• Where did you study?
• Who or what inspired you at art school?
• What has been the most significant event to have affected your work so far?
• Where do you produce your work?
• What materials have you used in the past?
• What materials are you working in currently?
• What would you consider has been the greatest influence on your work so far?

site a :: Gregor Kregar
Born Slovenia, 1972.

1991-1995 University of Ljubljana, BA.
1998-2000 Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, MFA.

I would question the romantic notion of the inspired artists. Why I make is connected to my life, society, people - it is part of what I do and who I am. My birth has been the most significant event affecting my work so far. I work with a range of materials depending on the conceptual nature of the work. As an artist I am influenced more by continuous everyday experience than by any specific artists.

This current work is made from cast-off objects from Auckland’s inorganic rubbish collections. It forms a gloriously subversive Arc de Triomphe entry to the Civic Square, painted red. The work examines people, a perception of what they are looking at - it can be seen as rubbish or art.

By spray painting these discarded objects red the shiny slick surface of the paint both holds in original meanings and histories as well as creating a range of new interpretations. The process of collecting, spraying, transporting and installing the work continues to play with changing meaning and changing spaces. The domestic object is elevated to a large-scale public sculpture. All objects are in a continual state of transformation. On completion of this exhibition the public will be invited to take home a piece of the scupture, returning it perhaps to the domestic or to the dump.

site b :: Phil Price
Born Nelson, 1965.

1984-1989 University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts.

American kinetic artist of the 1960's and 1970's George Rickey has had a big influence on this work. I work from my studio at my home in Amberley, North Canterbury. My work is years of experience with different materials and a good knowledge of those materials. I construct, rather than carve, with metals, fabricated metal, wood and plastic.

I am interested in the science of what an aesthetic thought is. The idea for this work was based on interlocking universes or atmospheres and how I imagined the protons within an atom to be. I enjoyed the idea of how much space there was between the two. Protoplasm is so simple and yet it was so complex to make. I guess this is similar to an aesthetic thought; having one is so simple, yet how we have one is totally unexplainable.

Now I am working with fibreglass, carbon fibre, kevlar, aluminium and high tensile steel and precision bearings. Damien Hirst, Peter Robinson and Carston Holler are important conceptual influences. Sculptural highlights include Wiggly Wagon, Hanmer 1992 and The Architects Scribble, at Sir Miles Warren's Ohinetahi Garden, 2001.

site c :: Christopher Braddock
Born Waiuku 1962.

1982-1985 University of Canterbury, BFA (Sculpture and Art History).
1986-1988 Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Diplome Superieur d’Art Plastique (First Class Honours with Distinction).
1988-1989 Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, MA (Hons).

Constantin Brancusi and Eva Hesse were early influences, along with the photographer Karl Blossfeldt. Travel after art school and living in Europe for seven years have probably most affected my work. I work from a studio at home. I work in a diverse range of materials in relationship to concepts relevant to each project. I have recently tattooed five models in collaboration with Otis Frizzell and presented the work as cibachrome prints. I have also recently worked in nickel-plated steel and ribbon.

Working with artists such as Christian Boltanski has been influential, but most influential have been teaching in art schools and contact with colleagues and students.

Highlights of my work to date include: Continuum 1995, mirrors and white lacquered MDF. Collection: Robert McDougall Art Gallery. Repository 2000, mirrored vitrine case with flocked base. Collection: Te Papa.

While my work is influenced by minimalist traditions with repeated modules and grid systems, I have become more interested in ornamentalising those systems: a sort of decorative and fruity take, challenging parts of the minimalist aesthetic.

site d :: Jeff Thomson
Born Castor Bay, Auckland, 1957.

1977-1979 Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland.
1982 Auckland Secondary Teachers College.

A long walk from Bulls to New Plymouth through the New Zealand countryside in the early 1980's was and still is a major source of reference material in my work.

Last year, as the Sarjeant Gallery's Tylee Cottage Artist in Residence, I became Wanganui's Roof Man replacing or repairing parts of roofs with screenprinted sections of gutter, downpipe ridging, corrugated steel and lead. I have used concrete, plastic, bread, wire, water, corrugated iron and steel in the past. Now I work predominately with steel and iron and introduce other materials as required.

Show Home 2002 uses corrugated steel, steel moulded weather boards, sheet steel, guttering, downpipes, trellis, flashings and timber. All the outside surfaces are screenprinted with a collection of patterns.

My earlier works influence later projects, one leads to another. My own highlights are the corrugated iron-clad Holden car at Te Papa, the enormous gumboot in Taihape, and most recently the roofing project in Wanganui.

site e :: Chiara Corbelletto
Born Biella, Italy, 1956.

1973 Modigliani Art School, Novara, Italy.
1979 Architecture School, University of Milano, Italy.
Arrived in New Zealand 1981.

The lasting influence from my Italian art education is the commitment to the pursuit of quality and a cultural engagement with the ideal of beauty.

I am fascinated by the processes of production. I started traditionally with stone, but now work with plastics, resin, rigid PVC and moulded cardboard pulp. I like to investigate commercial processes then turn them into art.

My work is motivated by two main sources of investigation: space definition through enclosing and layering the experience of space; and perception of repetition by following the logic of visual patterns into the many issues of tessellation and symmetries.

I am inspired by the contribution of those Italian artists who have achieved a significant role while operating outside their original cultural environment, such as Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino and Michelangelo Pistoletto. The work developed over the last five years is the most important to date, expressing a strong and coherent internal logic. I work from my studio in Auckland.

site f :: Pauline Rhodes
Born Christchurch, 1937.

1972-1974 University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts (Sculpture).

I consider myself a temporary or ephemeral artist often working outside, responding to the site, documenting or photographing the structure, and dismantling and removing it entirely.

The sea and the mountains were early influences; as well as keeping a piece of white string and a smooth white pebble in my pocket as a young child and falling in love with classical Greek sculpture at 12 years old.

My response to the world is what I want to share even if it has to be in my own peculiar way. The work is about responding to and doing things, rather than making things. I like to keep out of the picture. Not me but the work, which can then become anyone's.

Tower of Babel rises with a lightness of being toward the sky. It is ephemeral, open to the wind whistling through its galvanised steel tube scaffolding. It leans towards the sea: is it listening or about to tumble down the hill into it? Its stand is temporary, celebrating and affirming the Arts Festival. Although it harks back to ancient times, it welcomes the opportunities of the here and now.

site g :: Leon van den Eijkel
Born Netherlands, 1940.

1958-1963 Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague.

Three painters, Johannes Vermeer, Piet Mondrian and Mark Rothko most influenced me at art school. The event that has most affected my work has been arriving in the Pacific and specifically in New Zealand in 1986.

I work from a studio in Ponsonby or on site. I am a multimedia artist, working in paint, stone, concrete, steel, photography, film and video.

My father has been a spiritual influence, who rates up there with Nelson Mandela and John Bishop, the first Maori elder I met when I arrived in New Zealand. The sculptural highlight that pleases me most is the large-scale work commissioned for the Gibbs Collection.

site h :: Peter Nicholls
Born Wanganui, 1936.

1959-1961 University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts.
1962-1963 Elam School of Art, Auckland, (Hons).
1978-1979 University of Wisconsin, MA.

At art school in Auckland Jim Allen's exhilarating teaching was probably the single greatest influence. Jim's teaching plus the year studying in the US are the most significant events. The work of Mark de Suvero, Richard Serra, Giuseppe Penone, Arte Povera and David Nash, as well as organic naturalism, has also been influential.

I usually work in timbers both carved and constructed, steel and non-ferrous metals, brass, copper and bronze. I am currently working in manganese steel and stainless steel.

Highlights include the temporary work: Fullstop, steel and rock, Balaena Bay, Wellington, 1982. Other highlights include the permanent works: Spine, Australian hardwood, outside Auckland City Gallery Sculpture One, 1986. Bridge, Australian hardwood, University of Otago, 1985-1986. Crossings, Sarjeant Gallery Collection, 1992. Rakaia, Alan Gibbs Collection, 1997, 4.5m x 60m x 6m (height x length) - the most ambitious in terms of scale.

site i :: Louise Purvis
Born Pahiatua, 1968.

1988-1989 Hawkes Bay Polytechnic, Craft Design Certificate.
1989-1990 Waiariki Polytechnic, Craft Design Diploma (Maori).
1994 Scottish Sculptural Workshops, Aberdeen, Scotland.

I learn from anyone, anywhere.

I believe everyone has a value. Working with sculptor Steve Woodward kick-started me in techniques. I work from a studio out the back of my home in Point Chevalier. I work with hard stone, mostly granite and marble. Currently I am using Carrara marble. I work in bronze as well.

Influences that don't necessarily have anything to do with art impact on my work, from clothes pegs to Michelangelo. There is a value in lots of things that percolate slowly.

The highlight of my sculptural career? I haven't made it yet.

site j :: Paul Dibble
Born Waitakururu, Thames, 1943.

1963-1967 Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, BFA (Hons) (Sculpture).

Being at art school in Auckland in the 1960's was an inspiration in itself and studying with fellow students such as Richard Killeen and Terry Stringer. Being a New Zealander is the most significant fact affecting my work.

I currently produce large bronze and steel sculptures, in a studio workshop in Palmerston North. I have worked with fibreglass, plate steel, wood, plaster, bronze and multimedia. I am currently working with stainless steel and bronze. David Smith, the American sculptor, has probably been the most influential. The highlights of my career are always yet to come.

site k :: John Lyall
Born Sydney, 1951.

1980-1982 Sydney College of the Arts, BA (Visarts).
1992-1993 Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, MFA.

Post-object art was the greatest influence at art school and the inevitable influence of Duchamp, Beuys et al, and my hero Mario Merz. Ian Hamilton-Finlay, the concrete poet, is an enduring influence although his work is in no way similar to my own.

Probably the most significant event has been the understanding that postmodernity is not an imported European construct. We've always been postmodern. My work usually occurs on site across three genres, photography, object-based installations and computer generated. Now I even have a studio!

Highlights include the large installation pieces: Towards a Feral Art, Aotearoa: Picketting the Sublime; Given both a Cataract and a Prospect of Impalement, NZ Art Now, Museum of New Zealand, 1994 Towards a Hyper-Feral Art, Aotearoa: Picketting the Sublime Given Both a Blue Displacement and an Illuminating Vessel, Auckland Art Gallery, 1997. Cyber Opera Requiem for Electronic Moa, Sound Culture, Auckland, 1999.

"Landscapes are culture before they are nature; constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock." Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory.

site l :: Caroline Rothwell
Born Hull, England, 1967.

1990-1993 Camberwell College of Arts, London.
1997-1998 Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland.

My greatest influence has been my father. He was a hoarder, collecting everything from condom moulds to organ pipes. I grew up fossicking.

Most of my work is produced at my studio in Point Chevalier or on site. I have worked in fibreglass, porcelain, concrete, signwriter's vinyl - mainly industrial materials. I'm interested in the everyday resisence of the industrial and by working with the materials in a handcrafted way gives the work a poetic edge that reconfigures our everyday stuff.

The last year has been a great one. I made a lot of large-scale site-related drawings which allow a real immediacy to making. Also I had a fantastic sculptural commission from Te Papa.

site m :: Scott Eady
Born Auckland, 1972.

1991-1994 Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, BFA.
1998-1999 Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, MFA.

No specific influence or event but a combination of many people and experiences have influenced my work. I work from my studio at home often with the help of friends and professionals. I work with found objects - wood, plastics, fabrics and resin. Knitting wool is a current material and a recent installation has been a knitted boat.

The highlight of my career to date is the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship for 2002.

site n :: Bekah Carran
Born Wanganui, 1976.

1995-1998 Otago Polytechnic School of Art, BFA (Sculpture).

At art school I was most inspired by local junk shops. My work is most affected by everyday life and seeing how people live rather than by any one specific event. I share a group studio in Dunedin with six other artists. I've worked in wood, concrete and textiles and am currently concentrating on concrete.

There are no particular influences. I am stimulated by my surroundings and the people around me. I am always moving on and looking forward to the next project.