Luana Asiata

For Luana Asiata, painting is a way of finding her way back to herself. Working from memory, emotion, and lived experience, she paints imagined gardens, native flowers, and landscapes that reconnect her with her Samoan heritage and upbringing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Using thick layers of oil and acrylic paint with expressive brushstrokes, alongside original works on paper and digital painting, she creates spaces to pause, reflect, and remain connected to the places that continue to shape her.

Now based in London, Asiata’s practice reflects a life lived across cultures and continents. Her work is guided by vā, the Samoan understanding of the relational space that connects people, place, and spirit. This perspective shapes each painting, where colour, pattern, and gesture carry memory and connection rather than fixed narratives.

Asiata develops her own symbols and repeating forms as personal markers of movement, belonging, and her family history, echoing the journeys of her ancestors while tracing her own. These works become a living archive of memory and cultural connection.