Quick Facts
Biography
Karla Dickens (born 1967) is an Australian Wiradjuri installation artist. She lives and practices her art in Lismore, New South Wales.
Born on 2 December 1967 in Sydney, Dickens graduated from the National Art School with a bachelor's degree in 2000.
In March 2020 the Art Gallery of New South Wales commissioned Dickens to create a work for a niche in its portico that has remained empty since it was built. The previous commission for a panel by sculptor Dora Ohlfsen was cancelled in 1913.
Her work, A Dickensian Circus, was on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales for the Biennale of Sydney in 2020.
In the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, titled "Monster Theatres", her Dickensian Country Show occupies an entire gallery space, as a "fun fair" with darker underlying meanings to the titles of the carnival rides: "Colonial Roundabout", "Live Stock" and "Warn a Brother".
Dickens has works in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the University of Canberra and the Art Gallery of Western Australia.