Artist

Karen Mills is a Darwin-based artist and descendant of the Balanggarra people, of the Oombulgurri and Forrest River reserve, in the East Kimberley, Western Australia. 

Mills’ practice investigates themes of identity, connection and disconnection with her heritage and the timeless relationship that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples maintain with their ancestral Country despite recent histories of dispossession and displacement. Her abstract paintings are generally landscape-based, described by the artist as ‘lyrical landscapes of memory’, inspired by her experience and memory of Country. These works capture a sense of the rich history and survival of traditional culture and connection to Country hidden beneath layers of sediment.

Creating layered, textural, luminous canvas’, Mills is recognised for her use of hand-mixed paints produced from dry pigment and natural ground ochre. Her creative process is slow and considered, responding intuitively to the previous layer of paint until the painting reveals itself as complete.

Mills work has been showcased in numerous important exhibitions nationally and internationally. Notably, in 2017 she was selected for the inaugural edition of The National: New Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney; and her work was featured in Tarnanthi, Australia’s leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art festival presented in Adelaide, South Australia, in both 2015 and 2021.

She has been recognised as a finalist in the Len Fox Painting Award in 2016, at the Castlemaine Art Gallery Victoria and in the Guirguis New Art Prize in 2019 at the Art Gallery of Ballarat in Ballarat, Victoria, in addition to being the recipient of numerous international and national residencies and fellowships. In 2021 Mills was appointed by Regional Arts Australia as a member of the inaugural cohort of the Regional Assembly, an artist-led studio program connecting cultural practitioners working in regional and remote geographies across the Asia-Pacific.

In 2024 Mills has been invited to undertake an artist residency at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.

Mills' artworks are held in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Australia and the Parliament House Art Collection, as well as private collections in Australia and internationally.

© The Artist and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne 2024

For an extended CV, please contact Alcaston Gallery at art@alcastongallery.com.au