This fourth season edition of the award-winning arts series is all about paint. Host Ross Liew meets three artists who are exploring the medium's expressive possibilities in diverse ways: Ally Maher uses paint to portray corrosion, patina and the breaking down of surfaces; he reveals the work he did on the now-scuppered vessel Manuia for Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Helen Calder uses gravity, coaxing paint off the surface to make new shapes and Glenn Burrell encases objects in paint to form a skin and removes the original object, leaving a paint replica.

David Sims' impressionistic National Film Unit short film explores the responses of four NZ painters to a landscape illuminated by a distinctive light, but yet to feel the full impact of human settlement. The award-winning film examines Brent Wong’s floating architectural shapes, Colin McCahon’s religious symbolism, Toss Wollaston’s earth-hued palette and Michael Smither’s hard-edged realism. Their works are taken from safe gallery confines and moved closer to their subject matter, while the words of writers (Katherine Mansfield, Charles Brasch, Bill Pearson) provide another angle.

This short film follows a five-year-old child (Elizabeth Morris), after her mother's paranoid delusions reach breaking point and she is put in a mental hospital. Writer/director Belinda Schmid's aim was to show how children can respond to situations partly without emotional upset, "because we have no other measure for the ways things are supposed to be, and partly by coping in ways that help us survive at the time". Jennifer Ward-Lealand plays the mother. Nominated for Best Short at the 2000 NZ Film Awards, The Painted Lady was invited to a number of international film festivals.

Benjamin (Matt Scheurich) lives at home with his Mum, but the 23-year-old dreams of escaping the nest for some overseas experience. Pondering the question ‘should I stay or should I go?’, he retreats to his studio to create intricate shoebox dioramas of his destinations. Meanwhile Mum plans an (unwanted) birthday party for him. Director Michelle Savill made the film as part of a Film Studies course at Wintec in Hamilton. The quirky take on the yearning to leave — and the fear of being left behind — was selected for 20 film festivals, including Rotterdam and Clermont-Ferrand.

Episode 10 of season two of The Big Art Trip kicks off in Timaru, birthplace of artist Colin McCahon, where hosts Fiona and Douglas check out a collection of his paintings. Next it’s Dunedin to meet designer Vita Cochran, who makes handbags and other objects, and they visit the studio of Jeffrey Harris who talks about his evolving painting style. Dancer and choreographer Shona Dunlop MacTavish describes her career and life as a young woman in 1930s Europe and artist Grahame Sydney discusses landscapes, nudes, surrealism and his love for the Otago countryside.

In Episode Two of this series of The Big Art Trip, hosts Douglas Lloyd-Jenkins and Fiona McDonald visit the Grey Lynn home of painter Jacqueline Fahey and the downtown studio of photographer and rocketeer Yuk King Tan. Next they drive west to Laingholm and meet singer/songwriter Victoria (Taus) Girling-Butcher and her band Lucid 3. Then it’s back to Grey Lynn to meet artist John Reynolds and his oil stick paintings, and into the city to see the iconic Bushells sign and meet photographer Natalie Robertson, who is shooting a collection of NZ tea towels.

By the time she died in 1947 aged 78, expat Frances Hodgkins was recognised as a key figure in British art. Subtitled 'A Painter of Genius', this 1989 Kaleidoscope portrait mixes archival material with recreations of Hodgkins working in England in the 1940s, and being interviewed by Vogue. Her "gypsy" life ranges from a Dunedin upbringing, leaving New Zealand in 1901, to painting and teaching in Europe, and struggles with poverty and health. After embracing modernism in the 1920s, her art combined still life and landscape in original ways. TV veteran (and artist) Peter Coates directs.

John Reynolds is one of New Zealand's most talked-about contemporary artists. His diverse practice takes in painting, photography, clothing, tattooing and landscaping. Director Shirley Horrocks frames the film as a series of questions. The answers reflect Reynold's exuberant personality, his strong family life, his sense of humour, and his adventurous art-making. Following a year in his life, the film observes him as he makes and debuts a work (Cloud) at the 2006 Biennale of Sydney, and takes time out to appear in an episode of bro'Town.

Wellington artist Gordon Crook was known for his bold, colourful prints and tapestries. In this documentary, director Clare O’Leary mixes Crook’s biography (from UK foster care to London Central School of Art lecturer, then decades in Wellington) and interviews with Crook, dealers, students and mates. In this excerpt Crook discusses his work, and collaborating with weaver Lesley Nicholls; and friend Edith Ryan recalls first seeing Crook’s massive Michael Fowler Centre banners. The documentary premiered at the 2010 NZ Film Festival. Crook died in August 2011, aged 89.

In this leg of The Big Art Trip, hosts Fiona McDonald and Douglas Lloyd-Jenkins drive through Hawke’s Bay and catch up with artist Dick Frizzell to discuss landscape painting and his Phantom comic series. Then they’re off to Napier to meet musician Paul McLaney and his co-producer David Holmes, who explain their song production techniques. Painter and ceramic artist Martin Poppelwell shares his art, Douglas describes art deco and modernist architecture and they head south to nearby Waipawa to meet potter Helen Mason and painter Gary Waldrom.