The C Art Trust Award 2021/2022 Christina Pataialii

The recipient of the 2021/2022 award is Christina Pataialii

“Wellington-based painter Christina Pataialii has experienced a rapid rise in the art world in recent years. Prior to completing her MFA at Whitecliffe College in 2018, she had already produced a large-scale solo exhibition at Auckland’s Te Tuhi art centre. She then became the recipient of the prestigious Gasworks Residency in London, and returned to New Zealand to receive the inaugural Rydal Art Prize at Tauranga Art Gallery. It should come as no surprise then that later this year her work will feature at two significant global art events; the New Museum Triennial, New York, and the Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane.

Part of the attraction to her work lies in Pataialii’s fresh and liberal engagement with fundamental issues of contemporary painting. She draws on both figuration and the landscape, abstraction and gestural painting. She constantly blends ‘high art’ and popular culture, and as a colourist continually evolves her palette in order to both draw on her personal biography and probe new and unexpected colour combinations. All of these distinctive traits build to a singular practice which continues to evolve with a rare maturity and confidence for an artist in the early stages of her career.”

– Curator for the 2021/2022 award, Stephen Cleland 

Peaks and valleys, 2020

Acrylic, charcoal & house paint on drop sheet canvas
76 × 76 cm


Proximity & Distance, installation view, 2021
Tauranga Art Gallery

Right down the line, 2020
Artist acrylic and house paint on drop sheet canvas
182.5 × 170 cm

Mt Albert Night, 2020
Artist acrylic and house paint on drop-sheet canvas
120 × 120 cm

Christina Pataialii – Curriculum vitae

Born 1988, Auckland, New Zealand
Lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand

Education
2018 – MFA Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design
2015 – BFA Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design