Biography

Donina Asera was born in Australia to Dutch and Samoan migrant parents. A lifelong love of mythology and the tradition of storytelling led her to paint scenes from a mythology of her own imagining. Into these scenes she paints ornamental traditions carrying cultural weight: Delft tiles, Samoan tattoo motifs, and siapo (tapa cloth) pattern structures, which form a visual language distinctly hers.

The granddaughter of an artist, Donina began painting on canvas around 2018, after decades of exploring other mediums such as photography and printmaking. She developed a style with little spatial depth: flat landscapes populated by gods, in human and beast form alike, caught mid-action like actors on a theatre stage. She is currently extending this practice into sculpture through ceramics, reimagining recurring figures from her paintings as ritual vessels and offerings, creating sculptural objects that exist within, and pay homage to, the gods of the mythology she imagines.

Donina has been selected as a finalist in the 2026 Fishers Ghost Art Award, and has gained recognition as a finalist in the prestigious Sir John Sulman Prize (2025), The Churchie Emerging Art Prize 2025 (Commendation), and earlier selections as finalist in the Artlovers Australia Art Prize, Art to Art Unearthed Art Prize, and the Art2Life International Art Exhibition. Her work has been featured in a solo exhibition, numerous group shows, and art fairs across Australia.

Her work appears in private collections in Australia, Europe, the UK, and the United States. Donina is represented by Studio Gallery Group, and maintains a studio in Collingwood, Melbourne.