In the Spotlight: Luana Asiata
Image via Luana Asiata
For the third blog of our In the Spotlight series, we are talking with another award-winning creative, Luana Asiata. Recently shortlisted for The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021, Luana is a native New Zealander with an instinctive eye for glorious colour and whose own collection is quite literally on the move!
Thank you so much for joining us Luana. We LOVE your joyous and colourful creations and you are always a pleasure to work with! Tell us a little about your background and how you got into painting. Have you done it all your life?
Yes in a way it all started when I was a child, I loved to draw and would often copy my older brother who was a gifted artist. It wasn’t until I was at high school with the encouragement of my brilliant art teacher that I felt confident enough to pursue art. I wanted to be an accountant, but my art teacher convinced me to apply to art school instead and I got in. It was then that I realised a career in art was possible!
I left NZ after art school to go travelling and when I moved to London I wanted to find a job that would allow me to be creative and to travel, so I worked in publishing as a graphic designer. I liked creating designs for different audiences and sectors, working from a brief taught me to focus and to internalise what it was I wanted each of my designs to say, this approach spilled over into my art practice.
In 2020, I decided it was time to make the shift from design to art full time so to test the waters I signed up to exhibit a collection of abstract art prints at Top Drawer ‘Spotted’ and won runner up award for new up and coming designers to watch. This was my first trade show and winning an award was a huge confidence booster.
Off the back of Top Drawer, I had a couple of retailers reach out to stock my art, including the opportunity for a pop-up stand in West Elm Flagship store on Tottenham Court Road. Then the Pandemic hit, and everything was put on hold. But I took this pause as the perfect opportunity to do some research and reach out to retailers who I thought were a good fit and may want to stock my work. It was a great feeling to have my work stocked in a few independent stores. So I continued to juggle marketing and social media whilst still painting and taking private commissions at home in my hallway which was slowly filling up with work. I decided to rent a studio space at ASC in Streatham, which is fantastic and kid-free.
“I have a memory and I draw on the emotions from there, how I was feeling at the time affects the colour palette.”
We all know England especially can be quite grey. When you paint the coast and country landscapes from your travels, do you actually see all the bright pinks, greens and oranges that end up on the canvas? Where do they come from?
For the most part I have a memory and I draw on the emotions from there, how I was feeling at the time affects the colour palette. I take lots of photos and make notes on my phone of the area that I then reference when I begin a drawing or start a painting. We visited Lulworth Cove in Dorset on holiday and the kids were running about at the seaside, it was windy and the waves were crashing against the rocks, a moment that was full of energy. I draw on the emotions of the memory for my colour inspiration, it’s very instinctive.
For example, the pink print behind me is a reflection from when we first went into lockdown, and I was reminiscing on past trips. In that piece there are elements of light and dark coming through which is about me feeling trapped at that point and finding moments of happiness.
Image via Luana Asiata
We can see from your Zoom background that you have an amazing gallery wall going on there. Do you have any advice for us about choosing art for our homes that will really pop? Choosing the right piece in terms of size, style or colour can be tricky.
I work in a variety of shapes and sizes, and I like the look of choosing a couple of pieces that incorporate some of the same colours or the same fluidity and flow. Sometimes people send me a photograph of a space where they’d like to add some of my artwork, and I’ll use Photoshop to help them visualise what my artwork would look like in situ.
Another thing I do in my home is move artwork around the house depending on how I feel. I don’t like having the same pictures and paintings in the same place all the time, even if that means moving a piece from the living room to the bedroom, it’s nice to mix things up.
“I like the look of choosing a couple of pieces that incorporate some of the same colours or the same fluidity and flow.”
Do you have a favourite place you’ve seen your work hung, and why?
Yes! Going back years ago, when I was in New Zealand, I was part of an exhibition in my hometown at Auckland City Art Gallery. It was called Bottled Ocean and it was my first group show. The first time you do something is always the most memorable, isn’t it?
Luana brought a pop of colour to both our Crystal Palace and Aldgate projects.
The Quick Five
We are asking all of our guests 5 quick-fire questions in this series, so are you ready?
1. What is your earliest memory of design?
My earliest memory for art would be with my brother and my Mum, sitting at the kitchen table drawing a still life of fruit and plants, I was probably six years old. That’s when I first really got into art and thought, “Ooh, this is fun!”
2. What room or item in your home do you love the most, and why?
I really love my kitchen door handles and light switches. They’re from a company called Dowsing & Reynolds and the light switches are really cool; they’re the ones with the ribbed dials. They remind me of Marshall amplifiers, so I feel like I have a little bit of rock and roll in my life. They make me happy every day!
3. One thing you believe can elevate or transform any room?
Apart from art (of course!), lighting. We bought some beautiful Tom Dixon pendants which I think really elevate our room.
4. Best or worst design decisions you’ve made?
Commissions can be a bit scary because you’re creating such a personal piece for someone. But I like them because they’re a challenge. For a recent commission I did, I felt like I just couldn’t get it right. And then something changed. I came back from a run feeling a burst of positivity, so I just attacked the canvas. All this pent-up frustration and anxiety came out and I decided I needed to just stop being so silly. Once I overcame all of that fear I was really happy with the finished piece; I loved it, the client loved it and she was so excited to have received it as a gift from her husband.
5. What is the most recent item you’ve purchase for your home?
Cat litter, I’m sorry! It is the flushable kind though. I was going to take my cat, Bobby, to the studio. That was one of the reasons I bought him, so that I’d have a companion while I worked. But he’s only 10 months old and I don’t want him to lick something toxic or add little paw prints to my artwork, so I thought: let’s not take the kitten to the studio!
Luana’s studio assistant Bobby!