Soundtrack to My Life: Anna Victoria, artist

Anna Victoria with her unique Microsoft PowerPoint portraits of heritage New Zealand buildings.

Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters

When he was a teenager my eldest brother worked in a record store on Saturdays. He would always bring home loads of CDs and let me rummage through and borrow them. He was a teenage rock kid and I was 10 but taking on the taste of a teenage boy. It was all Foo Fighters, Offspring, Smashing Pumpkins ... I don't know why the Foo Fighters were my favourite but they were. Monkey Wrench was a song I played on repeat.

I drew my brother a big poster to say "thank you for the music". It's so embarrassing but I changed "Foo" to "Food" to make it "Food Fighters" and drew people punching and kicking burgers. I thought, "That's a great poster for these guys." My brother's definitely chucked it out by now but I'd love to see it again. I reckon Dave [Grohl, Foo Fighters' frontman] would've liked it.

Arabesque No.1 - Debussy

My mum plays piano, so classical music has always been in and around the house. It's a soundtrack to home. Listening to it is like going back in time to when I'd lie under the piano with my labrador Tony and watch Mum's feet go up and down on the pedals.

I can play a little bit but I never learned officially. My mum did teach for a while but it's difficult when it's your parents trying to teach you things. She said recently, "Maybe one day you'll learn." She's always said I've got good piano fingers. I realise now that I listen to so many classical music playlists, especially when I'm making art or focusing on something for work. There's that connection with my mum. I feel very safe and calm.

Say My Name - Destiny's Child

I was obsessed with Destiny's Child. It's hard to pinpoint why someone can fall in love with a band but for me it was proper fan stuff. I wanted to know everything about them and support them. I would sit and wait for this music video to play on MTV. It had a really achievable dance move. It was like posing and staying still between the beats. It's a solid move and one you can really take with you through life. I still listen to the song all the time.

In my early 20s I went to see Beyonce with some friends in London. It was obviously amazing but my inner child had this realisation that Beyonce didn't know me and that we weren't friends, like she didn't know me the way I knew her. I had a reality check. It was a very adult realisation that we weren't friends. I'm still holding out hope.

I Wonder - Rodriguez

I was travelling in Thailand and someone I met had the Searching for Sugarman documentary on their laptop. After watching the doco I downloaded all of Rodriguez's songs and it became the soundtrack to the rest of my trip. It was just me with Rodriguez in my ear, wondering and wandering around.

I was travelling alone - well, you meet people on the way but I was travelling alone - for six months. It wasn't a gap year it was more of a breakdown. I never did a gap year. I dropped out of uni when I was 19, moved to London and worked really hard for a few years. I quit all that, went travelling and that's how I ended up in New Zealand.

Do Your Thing - Basement Jaxx

If you're ever feeling low, I recommend turning this on loud. It's an instant mood-changer. You can't help but dance around. If someone said, "What's your favourite song?" I would never think to name this but it's somehow embedded itself in my life over the years. I think partly because you can listen to it when you're happy or in the car or whatever but it's also really useful in sadder times or times of change or if you're feeling a bit lost and you need a bit more confidence. I think it's good to have that thing you can put on and be like, "Okay, yeah, I'm doing my thing and it's okay."

It's funny because I talk about the lyrics and how empowering the lyrics are but half the song just says, "Boom, boom, boom, bang, bang, bang." But the lyrics that don't say that remind you to keep doing what you're doing with a positive attitude. I probably take way more out of it than it's giving me - but I love it.

* As told to Karl Puschmann. Anna Victoria is exhibiting her unique Microsoft PowerPoint portraits of heritage New Zealand buildings at next weekend's Art in the Park event. This is being held at Eden Park and will showcase the work of 100 of Aotearoa's best contemporary artists. See artinthepark.co.nz for more info.