Artist + Photographer + Designer
Fiona Little is a Canberra-based artist, photographer and designer whose multidisciplinary practice explores colour, geometry, repetition and space, and the relationship between the handmade and the manufactured. Working across painting, photography, drawing and design, her practice is grounded in an ongoing interest in visual structure and in the tension between systems of order and the unpredictability of the human hand.
For more than two decades, Fiona has explored the grid as a framework for abstract painting. Her paintings develop slowly through layers of colour, texture, and geometry, with each work evolving through a combination of structure and intuition. The grid provides an underlying system, but is never entirely fixed. Subtle shifts, irregularities and material traces accumulate through the process of making, allowing the works to move between precision and spontaneity, control and chance.
This tension also informs Fiona's photographic practice. Across still life, architecture, and street photography, she looks for moments in which the world resolves into abstract relationships of shape, line, light, shadow, colour, and space. Through considered viewpoints, framing, and arrangements, familiar objects and environments become studies in visual structure. Her photographs range from carefully constructed still lifes to fleeting encounters in the urban landscape, sharing with her paintings an interest in how order can emerge within the everyday.
Whether working with a constructed composition or responding to something encountered in the world, Fiona is drawn to the point at which a visual system begins to reveal its imperfections and the presence of the hand, the eye or the moment behind it. Across both painting and photography, repetition becomes variation, structure becomes composition, and the familiar can shift towards abstraction.
Fiona's practice has developed alongside studies in visual art, graphic design and photography. She graduated with First Class Honours in Painting from the ANU School of Art in 2007 and has maintained an active studio practice in Canberra since. She is a studio artist at M16 Artspace, where she also serves as a tenant representative on the M16 Artspace Board. Alongside her studio practice, she works as a freelance photographer, documenting exhibitions and artworks for galleries and artists.
Fiona has exhibited widely in Canberra and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Her work has received awards and finalist selections and is held in corporate and private collections.
Fiona Little : Artist CV 
Born in Canberra, 1985
 
Education

2026  Diploma of Photography and Digital Imaging, Canberra Institute of Technology
2024  Advanced Diploma of Graphic Design, Canberra Institute of Technology
2007  Bachelor of Arts (Visual) 1st Class Honours in Painting, The ANU School of Art

Professional / Arts Roles 
2026 – present   Tenant Representative, M16 Artspace Board, Canberra
2025 – present   Exhibition Photography, Platform Contemporary, Canberra
2022 – 2024      Exhibition Photography, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2022 – 2024      Gallery Maintenance, M16 Artspace, Canberra


Solo Exhibitions
2026   Blockwork, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2021   Chock-a-block, Studio 11, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2019   New Work, Chutespace – M16 Artspace, Canberra
2019   Machine Made, Studio 11, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2016   Colour Grid Series, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2016   Untitled Abstract Painting, Chutespace – M16 Artspace, Canberra
2011   New Work, ANCA, Canberra
2010   Fiona Little – Friday on My Wall, ANU School of Art Stairway Gallery, Canberra
2009   Fiona Little, Mount Majura Vineyard, ACT
2009   Primary Colours, Canberra Contemporary Art Space Manuka, Canberra
2008   2x4.ORANGE/BLACK/BLUE, CCAS Studio E87, Gorman House Arts Centre, Canberra
 
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026   The Quiet Between, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2025   Revelate, CIT Woden, Canberra
2025   QPRC & Bendigo Bank Art Awards, Queanbeyan
2024   Perspectives, High Court of Australia, Canberra
2024   Notions of Place, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2024   QPRC ART Awards, The Q Exhibition Space, Queanbeyan                                                  
2023   Fusion, Gorman House F Block Gallery, Canberra
2023   Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize, Huw Davies Gallery, Canberra                                   
2023   QPRC ART Awards, The Q Exhibition Space, Queanbeyan
2022   Outside the Square, The Queanbeyan Hive, Queanbeyan
2022   Contemporary Landscapes in Photography- CLIP Award, Perth Centre for Photography, Perth
2022   Di Broomhall and Fiona Little, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2022   Today, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2022   Wild Blue Yonder: Members Exhibition, Huw Davies Gallery, Canberra
2022   QPRC ART Awards, The Q Exhibition Space, Queanbeyan
2021   Sunstudios Emerging Photographers Award, Online Exhibition (due to covid)
2021   Wild gardens and local bush, Rosny Farm Schoolhouse Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania
2020   M16 Does Pizza, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2020   Mark Making, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2019   The 2019 Collection, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2018   M16 Studio Artists’ Exhibition, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2018   Young friends of the artist, curated by Vivienne Binns, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
2017   M16 Artspace 2017 Drawing Prize, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2017   Material World, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2017   ANU School of Art and Design Drawing Prize, ANU School of Art Gallery, Canberra
2017   Emerging From Canberra, Watters Gallery, Sydney
2016   Wrap Up, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2016   Wall to Wall, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2015   Display Suite, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2015   Agendo Art Prize, St Helier’s Gallery, Abbotsford, Melbourne
2014   Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, Brett Whiteley Studio, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney
2014   M16 Artist’s Exhibition, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2013   M16 Artspace Drawing Prize, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2012   M16 Artspace Drawing Prize, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2010   This Way Up, ANU School of Art Gallery, Canberra
2010   joint pus flux, Canberra Contemporary Art Space Manuka, Canberra
2010   slo mo demo, TCB art inc., Melbourne
2009   Friday on my Wall, ANU School of Art Painting Workshop, Canberra
2009   Agendo Art Prize, Phoenix Gallery, Deakin University, Melbourne
2008   Blaze 08, Canberra Contemporary Art Space Gorman House, Canberra
2008   The Painting Depot, M16 Artspace, Canberra
2007   Graduating Exhibition 2007, ANU School of Art, Canberra
2007   2007 School of Art Drawing Prize, School of Art Foyer Gallery, Canberra
2006   ANU School of Art Drawing Prize, School of Art Foyer Gallery, Canberra
2005   ANU School of Art Drawing Prize, School of Art Foyer Gallery, Canberra

Awards and Residencies (selected)
2026   Finalist, Australasia’s Top Emerging Photographer, Black and White Category 
2025   Winner, Bendigo Pick Photographic Award, QPRC & Bendigo Bank Art Awards
2025   Wide Angle CIT Award, photo access
2022   Finalist, CLIP Award, Perth Centre for Photography
2021   Finalist, SUNSTUDIOS Emerging Photographers Award
2015   Arts ACT Project Funding 2016
2015   Semi-finalist Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship
2014   Finalist Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship
2010   ‘Start Up’ Grant, Arts ACT
2010   Finalist Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship
2008   Canberra Contemporary Art Space Studio Residency and Exhibition Award
2007   ANU Emerging Artists Support Scheme, The Molonglo Group Acquisitive Award

Collections
Molonglo Group
Dobinson Davey Clifford Simpson
Private Collections, Canberra

Publications
Vivienne Binns: It is what it is, what it is, Sutton Gallery, Memo review, Helen Hughes, Saturday April 14, 2018
https://www.memoreview.net/blog/it-is-what-it-is-what-it-is-vivienne-binns-at-sutton-gallery-by-helen-hughes
Snapshot Collective – Claire Capel-Stanley, The Canberra Times, Saturday, August 23, 2014
This Way Up catalogue – Ruth Waller, ANU School of Art, 2010
Blaze 08 catalogue – Yolande Norris, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, 2008
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