Karla Dickens is a Wiradjuri artist known for poetic assemblages that voice personal and shared experiences of dispossession, misogyny, sex and mental health. Following the death of a close friend in 1997, crosses began appearing as motifs within her paintings and in 2000 Dickens began incorporating text into her work. Dickens uses recycled everyday items to explore her Indigenous (Wiradjuri) heritage, sexuality and life experiences as a single mother.