Introducing Emily Little

I am a New Zealand-born visual artist and l grew up in the UK.

I studied drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, under the watercolourist Dame Elizabeth Blackadder (1931-2021), while continuing my studies in sculpture as a second subject. While at college, I came to Italy on a field trip with the Scottish sculptor Vincent Butler RSA RGI (1933-2017) and his wife as guides. As a student of painting and a watercolourist, I fell in love with the light and colour I found here.

I later moved to Rome, where I was able to study the light and develop my painting. I subsequently won a place at the Scuola dell’Arte della Medaglia, at the Italian Mint in Rome. Working with all kinds of materials, I also drew and designed copiously – from commemorative medals to gadgets for the Quirinale – gaining invaluable experience and developing my understanding of space, composition and form.

My interest in paper both as support and medium for my paintings, as well as a sculptural medium, has seen my work on show in entities involved in paper research such as CTP (Grenoble, France), the Aticelca Congress 2022 (Pescia, Italy) and Lucense 2022/23 (Lucca, Italy). An interview by Chiara Italia was published in the November 2022 issue of Paper Industry World and a recent review by the same journalist was published in the magazine ‘Industria della Carta’ in February 2024.

Photo by Antti J. Leinonen for Kulttuurikauppila AIR programme.

The making process

I use high quality water-based paints and collage on heavy, acid-free, cold-pressed paper. For collage, I use neutral, long-fibred oriental papers, which I colour by hand. I prepare the support by stretching heavy-weight 100% cotton paper, on a board. At the same time, and over a few days, I hand-paint white or unbleached oriental papers with high-quality, water-based paints to create shades of colour and patterns, which form the basis for the overall colour composition. Torn fragments from these papers are what constitutes my second ‘palette’, with which I will work together with the paint palette. The painting is built up gradually by applying coloured washes until I achieve the saturation and tone I am looking for. The torn paper is added at this stage and the process of adding coloured washes and paper collage are repeated numerous times before the work reaches completion.

My paintings

Although my paintings may appear harmonious and balanced from a distance, up close these tactile works display numerous areas of skirmish, struggle and re-workings, resembling more the aftermath of a battle ground than a calm, serene point of arrival.

As semi-abstract works, there are few overtly figurative elements and my primary goal is for the paintings to be felt rather than understood. My aim is to provoke a subjective reaction in the viewer, from a place they may not easily recognize, and this primarily via the language of color.

Explore an overview of my artistic journey