Climb over a pile of carpets on the top floor of one of the historic warehouses in Cumberland St, in Dunedin, and you'll come to artist Rob Piggott's airy studios and store rooms.
Stacks of large canvases, brightly coloured works on the walls, and towers of drawers holding works on paper glow in the gentle south light from the skylights.
On a low table, Chinese brushes large and small, plain and ornate, are laid out intriguingly in rows.
Piggott has been working as an artist for more than 30 years, and despite teaching an art, music and language programme in the special needs learning centre at Kaikorai Valley College, juggling family life, and caring for his mother who suffered from Alzheimer's, playing music (vocals, and guitar) and studying for a masters degree, he has been prolific in his art.
"It takes enough sometimes for me just to get into the studio and get work done, when maybe it would seem even impossible to do that," he said.
"I've always managed to keep my art practice going, but to make it into the marketplace - it's not my strength marketing my work."
He has shown work in several Dunedin galleries since his first exhibition in the Otago Museum in the late 1970s.
However, several things have happened in the past few years that have brought wider attention , and enabled him to spend more time at his work, he says.
Among them are his children growing up and leaving home, his mother died a year ago, and he is reducing his teaching hours, but more importantly, he was invited to show his work at the International Art Fair in Taiwan, Art Taipei 2007 with eight other New Zealand artists.
Since then he has had several exhibitions there, and sold more work than he has in New Zealand, he said.
Last year articles on him and his work, written by Dr Cassandra Fusco of Christchurch, appeared in Takahe, a New Zealand literary magazine, and the international magazine Asian Art News.
For the next two months, he is "Artist in the Terminal" at Dunedin International Airport.
He put forward a hanging proposal for 15 large abstract paintings in various places around the building.
"I think they will work beautifully in a space like this. They will become part of the architecture and I believe they will generate a real feeling to what in some ways is a rather sterile, functional environment. I'm hoping it will give a certain kind of presence to the airport," he said.
The works on display will be from various series dealing with "lines, loops and light".
Some will refer to a landscape, like the large blue and yellow one entitled Wanaka that will hang on the landing.
It relates to a personal memory of Wanaka and is about light and ripples on water, but it is not important that anyone understands his experience and they can bring their own responses to it.
"For me it's important that it's coming from my own life, but once it leaves me I want it to be open."
When he first became an artist he made an agreement with himself that art would always be an exploration, rather than a production of works to sell, he said.
"I keep with my own vision, whatever that is. It's quite expansive. I don't have a signature style and for that reason I find it difficult to market my work."
He works in series, challenging himself to explore an idea as fully as possible without repeating or rehashing it.
"That's fairly hard to do sometimes with abstract work that is fairly minimal. But in a sense it's a refreshing challenge, quite an exhilarating challenge to find there are still other possibilities within something that has fairly strict limitations to it."
As a teacher he has done representational work - "the nudes and the vases of flowers" - he says, and although he enjoys it, abstract work is where he feels at home.
"There's something about abstract art that draws me into wanting to get beneath the surface of things. There are a number of layers to a painting. To me painting is primarily a visual experience rather than a cerebral one. It's not just about meaning, although that's in it.
"I believe the nature of meaning is transitory - what had meaning for you when you were a child is not necessarily meaningful to you now."
While meaning may be an important part of art, he prefers to go behind the surface, he says.
"I want it to be a visual experience, and to a certain extent a meditative experience, because, when you are in a visual state, your mind settles and becomes quiet. I guess that's why I've chosen painting rather than writing. I don't want to use words: I want to use silence," he said.
"I want my painting to have a sense of simplicity. I think it's connected to truth, and I think that's why I like to work in an abstract way rather than creating an illusion.
Why the terminal?
The Artist in the Terminal programme aims to enhance people's experience while they are in the building, according to John McCall, chief executive, Dunedin International Airport.
People can have their most joyful or saddest experience at an airport, or they can be bored, stressed or apprehensive, he says.
Displays such as the Otago Museum's on the first floor and art work from the Artist in the Terminal programme, are intended to help people relax by providing something unexpected and different in an airport, he says.
They had received requests from artists to hang work in the terminal from time to time, but they didn't want it to become a community gallery, so they set up the programme, inviting proposals from artists to display their work for a period.
"We've had art in the stairwell, and some predetermined positions, depending on what the art is and the size, but Rob's proposal is more expansive than in the past. He's the first abstract artist we've had," Mr McCall said.
The inaugural Artist in the Terminal was Sam Foley who exhibited for eight weeks from September last year, followed by Kerry Fenton-Johns.
"A Summer Show", which just closed, included works by Peter Cleverley, Sam Foley, Greg Lewis and Anya Sinclair.
Rob Piggott's "Presence: loops, lines and light" will be on show from January 27 until March 25.
