The Waterfall

What I'd like people to do when they see my work — that you're not looking at the pictures Hopefully, you're recreating that experience of being there.

– Gerda Leenards on her Fiordlands paintings, at the end of this documentary

I prefer to work quite quickly, because the boat's moving quite often. So I sort of size up the colours and the tones as quickly as possible, and put them down quickly, and hope that I’m going to hit the right colours. Monet, for instance, he would get things down quickly, and to the point. And while it is not impressionism I’m after, but the same sort of immediate reaction.

– Melvin 'Pat' Day on his artistic process while sailing through the sounds

It's very good for an artist to throw themselves into a situation with other artists. You have quite a silent dialogue, but it's a group of artists all responding to the same thing. It takes them all out of their own individual rut.

– Artist Nigel Brown, at the start of this documentary

No I haven't been to Fiordland, and I thought 'that's definitely me. I'd love to go down and have a crack at it. And to produce something that's on a grand scale' . . . It's one of the great wonders of the world. It's so inaccessible — or has been in the past — that it's got this very untouched feeling about it really. Mother nature’s been able to rock on at her own leisure, without man's interference too much.

– Artist John Walsh, early in this documentary

...they are the big works of the time. We’re stuck with those in a way. We can’t undo that except critically, and the nice thing about writers and painters is they can take something, that is a legacy, and they can revitalise it — seen in a fresh way. There is room now for you know, contemporary painters, not only Pākehā but Indigenous people to unravel these things.

– Nigel Brown on responding to the 18th century paintings of William Hodges