Kate Serebrianskaia

Kate Serebrianskaia is a Siberian born emerging artist, based in Auckland. She graduated from Unitec with a Master of Creative Practice in 2024, and also holds Postgraduate Diploma in Visual Art from the Novosibirsk State University (Russia) and attended the Summer Programme at St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. Serebrianskaia’s application of staining paint into (rather than onto) the canvas unifies the materials and surfaces of her images, mediating a balance between process, intention and intuition. Working at scale and taking colour and form as her subjects, Serebrianskaia’s fields of colour bleed and fray into one another, disrupting the flatness of the painting’s plane giving the illusion of depth, volume and illumination. Her iridescent surfaces are optically charged and seductive, challenging our perception of space and movement. Kate’s soak-stain approach of spilling, staining, tinting, creates floating fields of translucent colour which the explore the interplay of physical and metaphysical realms, reflecting on presence, essence and absence. 

Exhibition text by Victoria Munn:

“Layering thin veils of acrylic on canvas, Kate Serebrianskaia creates dynamic fields of colour that shift in form, tone and hue. The distinct palettes of individual compositions inform each painting’s mood and energy. Yet Serebrianskaia’s command of materials and her meditative, organic imagery consistently yield paintings that evoke elusive atmospheric effects: warm breath in cold air, sunlight glare or twilight afterglow.

Originally from Siberia, it was following her move to Aotearoa New Zealand that Serebrianskaia departed from figurative painting and developed her distinct abstract style. Her experimentation with diverse media was crucial to this abstract turn, revealing new visual possibilities. Her current body of work relies upon the materiality and fluidity of diluted acrylic inks and fluids, and the effect of combining them with raw, unprimed canvas. Thin layers of paint seep into the canvas. Colours and tones change, soften and fade as the paint is absorbed; as veils of paint are layered one after the other. The result is an immersive sense of depth in the two-dimensional canvas, and the impression of colour moving – drifting, sinking, pulsing – beneath the painting’s surface. Gently unfolding before the eye, the movement within Serebrianskaia’s paintings encourages the viewer to linger, and rewards slow looking with new depths.  

In her working process, Serebrianskaia delicately balances control and flow. She occupies the liminal space between actively commanding the paint across the canvas and embracing the materials’ natural instincts. Relying on her intuition, some works take much time to complete, constituting dozens of layers of thin paint. Others reveal themselves more quickly”.  

Recent Awards and Scholarship

2025 Tasman National Art Awards, Finalist

2025 The Emerging Artist Awards, Upstairs Gallery, 1st Place Winner

2025 Craig Aspiring Art Prize, Finalist

2024 Kumeu Arts Awards, Finalist

2024 Unitec Masters Scholarship 

2015 Summer Programme at St.Petersburg Repin Academy of Fine Arts 

Recent Exhibitions 

2025 Tasman National Art Awards Exhibition, Nelson (21 September - 4 October)

2025 The Emerging Artist Awards Exhibition, The Upstairs Gallery, Auckland (30 August - 21 September)

2025 Aotearoa Art Fair , Auckland (1-4 May)

2025 Beyond the Surface (Solo Show), Depot Artspace, Auckland (1 February - 15 March)

2025 Craig Aspiring Art Prize Exhibition, Wanaka (11-13 January)

2024 The Daylight Show / 13 Emerging Artists - An Ode to Peggy Guggenheim, Föenander Galleries, Auckland (6-24 December)

2024 Kumeu Arts Awards Exhibition, Auckland (5-23 November)

2024 Finished works and works in process, Toi o Wairaka Gallery, Auckland (15-22 August)

2024 Translating unseen truths through painting (Solo Show), Toi o Wairaka Gallery, Auckland (4-12 July)

Education

Master of Contemporary Art (First Class Honours) Unitec, 2024
Postgraduate Diploma in Visual Art, Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Russia 2019

Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics, with Honors, Novosibirsk State University, Russia 2028