Karla Dickens is an artist of Wiradjuri, Irish and German heritage whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, photography, video, collage, sculpture and installation. Dickens brings a dark humour to her unflinching interrogation of subjects such as race, gender and injustice. Described as a 'found-object' virtuoso, her practice often places overlooked or discarded objects into new contexts to interrogate Australian culture, contest histories and agitate for change.

Dickens has exhibited throughout Australia and abroad since the early 1990s. In 2023 her major survey exhibition Embracing Shadows opened at Campbelltown Arts Centre, spanning thirty years of practice. Her upcoming solo exhibition, Rise and Fall, will shortly open at Bondi Pavilion as well as her presentation within the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. Recent significant exhibitions also include NIRIN, Biennale of Sydney (2020); Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2020); Monster Theatres, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (2020); Defying Empire, National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2017); and The National 2017: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney (2017). Dickens’ work is held in major collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Museum of Australia, Canberra; National Art School, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.