Karma Barnes

Karma Barnes is an interdisciplinary artist, art therapist and arts mentor based on Bundjalung Country in the Northern Rivers, NSW. Her practice spans installation, sculpture, painting and participatory projects, with a strong focus on community-engaged and collaborative work developed across diverse contexts.

Her international profile has accelerated rapidly in recent years. She was awarded the Grand Prix at the Larnaca Biennale 2025 for her large-scale suspended installation CO-Lapses. Following this, she was selected for the Arte Laguna Prize 20th Edition in Shanghai, and has since been invited to present a new iteration of CO-Lapses at the 10th Beijing Biennale in 2025 and the OSTEN Biennale in Skojpe, North Macedonia, 2026.

In 2024, CO-Lapses was also exhibited in Venice as a finalist in the Arte Laguna Prize. Her work is held in the collection of the New Mexico State University Art Museum, marking her first major museum acquisition. She has exhibited nationally and internationally across institutions and galleries including Europe, the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Alongside her studio practice, Barnes has an extensive background in participatory and community-based arts. She has worked with a wide range of peak bodies, youth services and community organisations across the Northern Rivers, developing and delivering arts-based programs that support wellbeing, connection and creative expression. Her work is grounded in neuro-affirming, inclusive approaches and often engages young people, particularly within adolescent mental health contexts.

As a qualified art therapist, she specialises in working with young people and diverse communities, supporting emotional regulation, identity development and recovery through creative practice. She has contributed to arts and wellbeing responses following major natural disasters in the region and continues to work across youth-focused programs and services.

Barnes also offers one-on-one mentoring for emerging artists, supporting the development of creative practice, conceptual clarity and pathways into contemporary art contexts.

Her artistic work is grounded in material exploration, working with earth pigments, clay, ash and sediment through slow, process-led systems. Often creating large-scale suspended installations, she explores themes of environmental change, material memory and the interconnected relationship between people, place and time.

Across both her artistic and therapeutic work, collaboration, participation and responsiveness to context remain central, creating spaces for reflection, expression and shared experience.

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