Karla Dickens

Biography

Now based in Goonellabah, Lismore, on Bundjalung Country, cross-cultural Wiradjuri woman Karla Dickens brings a black humour to her unflinching interrogation of subjects such as race, gender and injustice, revealing her often raw pain along the way.

Born in Sydney on Gadigal Country in 1967, Dickens studied at the National Art School, graduating with a primary focus on painting and collage. Since then, she has expanded into a more sculptural practice that often disarms viewers with familiar – if racially or sexually charged – found objects, a strategy she says helps them connect with the work.

‘I’m not a politician; I’m an artist, a storyteller. With my art, I talk about my personal experiences. I don’t set out to make political statements. I am political simply because I am who I am – a single mother, a lesbian, a First Australian,’ says Dickens.

Dickens has been widely collected, with works held in national and state institutions, and curated into important survey exhibitions such as Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial (2017) and NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020) – the work created for the latter, A Dickensian Circus, is now in the Art Gallery of New South Wales collection. She has been the recipient of several artist residencies from Cape York to Alice Springs, from Java to Italy, and has been involved in public and community projects in Australian sites from Redfern to Brewarrina.

Dickens was one of six NSW women artists invited to contribute a proposal for a panel for the Art Gallery’s historic facade. Her winning concept, titled To see or not to see, included an inkjet print and textile hood.

Installed in late 2022, her glass and metal panel addressing the continuing legacies of colonialism and patriarchy is one of the works commissioned by the Art Gallery for the Sydney Modern Project, the transformation of the institution into a two-building art museum campus.