Hastings-McFall (b. Titirangi) was educated at Auckland Girl's Grammar, Auckland University and Manukau School of Visual Arts and has a Bachelor of Visual Arts and a tertiary teaching diploma. Her art reflects a juxtaposition and hyphenation of her Palagi and Samoan heritages, a binary that is intimately entwined. Her art practice, which developed from the early 1990s, addressed and continues to explore a number of key issues relevant to the discourse of an emerging contemporary Pacific art practice in New Zealand. She is seen as a key figure in the contemporary Pacific art scene both locally and internationally. Hastings-McFall's work has been discussed in terms of cultural identity, an exploration of her identity, simultaneously reflecting on and referring to Pacific cross-cultural histories and colonial legacies. Dr Caroline Vercoe states that "her art practice is much broader, though, for the dynamics of identity resonate in more complex multi-faceted ways."
