Lily Laita

Born in 1969 in Tāmaki Makaurau, Lily Aitui Laita is a foundational figure in the development of contemporary Pacific art in Aotearoa. Of Māori (Ngāti Raukawa), Sāmoan (Tanugamanono) and English descent, Laita’s practice spanned over three decades. Laita was part of a raft of pioneering Pacific artists including Fatu Feu’u, John Pule and the late Jim Vivieaere who emerged in the New Zealand art scene in the late 1980s. Laita is a founding member of Tautai Pacific Arts Trust and in 1990, she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Elam School of Fine Art in 1990 making her first Pacific woman to do so. She later returned to complete a Masters of Fine Arts in 2002.
Laita has had an extensive exhibiting career nationally, throughout the Asia-Pacific region and Europe. Early in her career, Laita distinguished herself through her characteristically expressive painterly style on black builders paper. These large-scale works move fluidly between the past and present surfacing ancestral figures, political histories and personal experiences of Aotearoa and Sāmoa.
Her artwork was included in groundbreaking surveys of Māori and Pacific art such as Te Moemoea no Iotefa (The Dream of Joseph) 1989, Kohia Ko Taikaka Anake 1990, Bottled Ocean 1994, Samoa Contemporary 2008 and Toi Tū Toi Ora 2020. In the mid-1990s, she formed the Vahine Collective, alongside artists Lonnie Hutchinson and Niki Hastings-McFall. In addition to their respective practices, they also came together to undertake artist residencies, create artwork and exhibit together.
Laita was respected as an arts educator, having maintained her artistic practice alongside teaching roles across Aotearoa. While she taught across secondary and tertiary studies, she was dedicatd to Western Springs College – Ngā puna o Waiōrea as the Head of the Art Department, where had worked for more than 30 years.
Her work is represented in private and public collections including Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Sarjeant Art Gallery Wanganui and the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau.