Self-taught Melbourne-based artist, Donina Asera, has been honing her eye from an early age while she watched her grandfather paint still-lifes and landscapes in his studio. While she has always drawn, Donina has also experimented in photography (digital and large-format film), and various forms of printmaking. She began painting on canvases in late 2018 and in March 2020 during lockdown, felt that her style had reached a sufficient maturity to make them publicly available. She showcased a selection of paintings at the other art fair and her striking works caught the eye of one of Wentworth directors. Donina has since been selected for the juried Art2Life International Art Exhibition in 2020, selected as a finalist of the Artlovers Australia 2021 Art Prize, and a finalist of the Art to Art 2021 Unearthed Art Prize. Donina exhibits in Sydney with Wentworth Galleries at 1 Martin Place and 61 Phillip Street. She has participated in a number of group exhibitions, and works in both private and personal collections in Europe, US, and Australia. My current series “Arpaïs & Sebrack” is loosely based on my parents’ disastrous marriage, telling the story of a coming together of culturally different beings, familial concerns, betrayal, damage, and a falling apart. It incorporates elements from their native cultures; the Samoan “pe’a” tattoo for the masculine character, and Dutch Delft-inspired tiles and colours for the feminine character. As an avid reader, I have always loved creation stories, myths, and legends regardless of the culture. As an artist, I created my own mythology of an imagined land and god-like beasts, and I paint scenes from these stories in my series “Myth Donina”. While my Arpaïs & Sebrack series has been singled out from other stories have painted as part of my Myth Donina series, it still forms part of an encapsulated mythology. My works in both series depict an imagined land of gods, creatures, and machines that populate a colourful landscape. The creatures appear across several works as protagonists and witnesses, in much the same way multiple characters might be woven through a series of stories or books. The flat, abstracted landscapes can appear stage-like, with the creatures taking on a performative aspect, seemingly caught mid-act with a self-conscious sense of being observed. The result is a series of characters moving towards a pre-determined fate with an air of pantomime