Lauren Little
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Sep 26
- 5 min read
Lauren Little is a collage artist and painter whose work looks at portraiture as something always in motion. Drawing on themes of resilience and becoming, she creates images that feel both fragile and strong, often leaving them deliberately unfinished. Her process begins with AI-generated portraits, which she cuts, rebuilds, and reshapes by hand through collage and paint. Works like “Glow,” “Divided,” and “Always Never There” show this back-and-forth between absence and presence, control and chance. What emerges is a practice that mirrors the shifts of life itself, where being incomplete is part of the story rather than the end of it.
Q: In works like "Glow" you link collage to the feeling of finding yourself again. How do you show that shift in the image?
A: I think finding yourself again is a bit like dusting off a treasure you’ve stumbled across or uncovering something buried under rubble. It rarely happens in one big, dramatic moment, it’s usually a slow, gradual process. Bit by bit, it emerges. In "Glow," that feeling comes through in the way certain pieces of the portrait are revealed just enough to show the beauty that’s beginning to emerge. Portraits typically focus on the eyes, but in concealing them, I’m suggesting that the full picture isn’t there yet, the person is still in the process of becoming whole, but you can feel the transformation taking shape.
Q: Your process often starts with AI and then moves into cutting and rebuilding by hand. What does that mix add for you?
A: AI is such a controversial topic in the arts. Many artists keep their distance from it, while others work exclusively with it. For me, it’s a very new part of my practice, but it’s been incredibly liberating. It allows me to create and shape the kind of portrait I’m envisioning, while still leaving room for the unexpected.
I’m not a portrait photographer. Photography is something I’ve enjoyed, but it’s never been my main focus, so AI has provided an exciting starting point rather than a limitation. Traditional portrait photography is about capturing a person with the photographer’s specific vision, where the subject, the lighting, and the moment become the art itself. In this series, my work isn’t about the person in the image, but the conversations that surround them.
I’m also fascinated by the fact that AI is trained on billions of faces. It allows the themes within the portrait to feel connected to all of us, collectively. The work begins as a digital image but quickly shifts into analogue processes: cutting, collaging, drawing, and painting, making it deeply tactile and human. My first love, and my biggest priority, has always been creating with my hands.
That transition between digital and physical mirrors the themes of my work: transformation, becoming, and the meeting point of past and present.
Q: "Divided" shows life pulled in different directions. Do you see that more as a struggle or as a kind of freedom?
A: Being pulled in different directions can feel painful and overwhelming. It’s uncomfortable, and that discomfort is a natural part of life. Change always brings some level of uncertainty, but shifts like that often lead to something new. And while the unknown can feel scary, there’s also potential for optimism and excitement in it, depending on how we choose to look at it.
We don’t always get to control the changes that happen, often they arrive without our consent or full understanding. But in hindsight, they sometimes reveal themselves to have been for our greater good. So while there’s definitely struggle in that process, there’s also a kind of freedom in surrendering to it, trusting that even in the messiness, we’re moving toward something that will ultimately shape us for the better.
Q: Some of your portraits stay unfinished on purpose. What makes you want to leave them open?
A: I see us as constantly evolving. There’s never a final, complete version of who we are. Life doesn’t stop, and neither do we. Leaving a portrait visibly unfinished is my way of honouring that.
The visible marks of process, the undone-ness, are really important to me. I’ve spent years developing this style so that even when a piece is visibly incomplete, it still feels whole, just as we have to accept that we are enough as we are, flaws and all. The beauty is often in the unfinished parts, the gaps, the places where growth is still happening. It’s a reminder that being a work in progress isn’t a flaw, it’s the point.
Q: In "Always Never There" absence and wholeness sit together. How do you work with that tension?
A: This piece, much like the others in the series, really leans into the balance of positive and negative space, both visually and metaphorically. Absence and wholeness have to sit side by side because that’s what life feels like. We all experience both, sometimes at the same time.
With this work, I wanted to create a sense of completeness while still showing that there’s space left open, and that emptiness isn’t separate from the image; it’s part of what shapes it and gives it form.
Absence often carries a negative connotation, like loss or heartbreak, and although that can be painfully true, sometimes the absence of someone or something is exactly what we need to heal, grow, or come back to ourselves.
It’s a fine line, because what does wholeness even mean? I don’t think we ever reach a point of being truly “complete.” To me, it’s about accepting that both presence and absence shape us, and both are necessary to create the full picture of who we are.
Q: Resilience and becoming come up a lot in your work. What do they mean to you right now, outside the studio?
A: Those themes feel like a thread that runs through my life, so they naturally show up in my work. Resilience, to me, is about the quiet strength of our bodies and minds, how they adapt, heal, and carry us through experiences that change us. Motherhood has been a huge part of that for me. My transition into becoming a mum felt incredibly natural and joyful, yet, like any profound change, it was layered with moments of worry, fear, doubt, and pain.
Pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood completely transform you, moment by moment, day by day. You’re the same person deep down, but fundamentally changed. There are moments where you don’t quite feel like yourself anymore, and moments of awe at what your body and mind are capable of. It’s the most common thing on earth. Every single person that exists or has ever existed has been born, and yet, each birth is a complete miracle. For me, resilience is about recognising that every single day miracles like this happen, and trusting in the body, the mind, and the self to adapt and grow. Becoming is the process of evolving through those transformations, of gradually stepping into the next version of yourself, shaped by all that you’ve experienced along the way.
