Karla Dickens (b. 1967), Wiradjuri artist, graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the National Art School in Sydney in 2000 and has since built a diverse practice across the mediums of painting, photography, mixed media and installation. Inspired by dreamlike revelations of Country, Dickens' work is informed by issues surrounding identity, gender politics, spiritualism and the environment. Described as a 'found-object' virtuoso, her visual language is often characterised by cross motifs, text and beading on painted canvas surfaces. Dickens has exhibited throughout Australia and abroad since the early 1990s. Her major solo exhibition, King Hit by a Life-Like Liquid (2016), comprised six floors of exhibition space at Allens, Deutsche Bank Place in Sydney. In 2017 she was represented in important group exhibitions including the Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia; The National 2017: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney and Grounded: Contemporary Australian Art at the National Art School Gallery, Sydney. In 2018 she was finalist in the King & Wood Mallesons Contemporary ATSI Art Prize and in 2015 received an Asialink residency which she undertook at Cemeti Art House, Indonesia and Artback in the Northern Territory. Among many awards and grants, Dickens was awarded the 2018 Copyright Agency Fellowship for Visual Art. This resulted in her 2020 works A Dickensian Country Show, presented at the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, and A Dickensian Circus, shown during the 22nd Biennale of Sydney at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her work is held in the National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, Australian National Maritime Museum, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Artbank, Sydney, Artspace Mackay and Bendigo Art Gallery.
