[2] Her practice encompasses many media including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, textiles and installation,[2][3] and her work addresses contemporary political issues facing Indigenous Australians.
In 1995, Foley permanently moved back to Hervey Bay to be with family and take part in Native Title negotiations regarding a portion of Fraser Island.
[9] She contributed to the emergence of urban Australian Indigenous Art through her participation in the seminal Koori '84 group exhibition at Artspace.
[2] Her works in public art and installation aim to examine and redress previously disregarded histories of colonisation in Australia.
[2] Pukumani or tutini (funerary) poles contrast Sydney’s urban landscape and memorialise the violence that shaped early interactions with settlers on the city’s shore.
[13] By exhibiting these works within the context of Western cultural institutions, Foley aims to evidence and embed oppressive Australian histories where they have previously been excluded.
Works such as 1994’s Native Blood and Badtjala Woman demonstrate an aim to undermine and challenge the historical and "scientific" sanctity of such images, whilst highlighting the West’s idealisation, sexualisation and exploitation of Indigenous culture as an exotic aesthetic.
[2] Themes of nature - sand and sea - pervade pictorial works and foreground the significance of Foley’s ancestral ties to Thoorgine (Fraser Island).
[9] The Legends of Moonie Jarl, a book written and illustrated in the 1960s by Foley’s aunt and uncle, relates numerous Badtjala creation stories that describe the animals, vegetation and weather patterns of the island.
Men's Business (1987–89), Catching Tuna (1992) and Salt Water Islands (1992) depict Foley’s experience during her time visiting the remote communities of Maningrida and Ramingining in the Northern Territory.
In 2013 Fiona Foley was interviewed in a digital story and oral history for the State Library of Queensland's James C Sourris AM Collection.
In the interview Foley talks to writer, Louise Martin-Chew about her life as an artist and the influences on her practice including her sense of justice, desire to tell the hidden histories, her family memories and her love for Aboriginal culture.
[15] In 2020 Foley was awarded State Library of Queensland's inaugural Monica Clare Research Fellowship for her project Bogimbah Creek Mission: The First Aboriginal Experiment and The Magna Carta Tree.