Red hot sculpture for pit lane

Photo / Sarah Ivey

Sculptor Gaye Jurisich says fascination with slot-car sets as a youngster and watching cars travel up and down one of Hamilton's busiest streets provided her with the inspiration for her latest work - a twisting, 200m-long stretch of red galvanised pipes.

"When I was a child I can remember people had slot-car tracks - you had a car, put it in the slot, pushed a button and off it went ... I suppose this is partly what this is all about."

Six engineers are adding the final touches to Passing Red. The artwork, which was chosen from a number of proposals last year by Hamilton City Council's public art committee, runs the full length of the Hamilton 400 V8 Supercars pit lane on Mill St as part of the city's landscape mitigation plan.

"It's all been made in sections that fold together and unfold, it goes away, gets stored and then comes back again," Jurisich said. "But it will be here a lot longer than the V8s will be."

The Perry Foundation partly funded the work with Hamilton City.