Together, they represent what Dickens regards as a “perfect visual diary” of a 30-year practice that turned her life around after a troubled adolescence, marked by drug addiction.

“I got out of rehab in my early twenties, and with help from my friends, I applied for the National Art School shortly after. I ended up in the best jail in this country (NAS is on the site of the old Darlinghurst jail) that help saved my life.

“Art is a life-saver, and still is. That’s why the work in this show is about personal issues that have affected me, generational trauma is a large part of the show, as is the environment. I joined Greenpeace when I was 20. I’ve just lived through a natural disaster.”

Art, she says, is work and therapy. After the Lismore floods, she found solace in the studio. “The first work I did was Breaking Records and there are works on droughts, fires, there’s a work on coral bleaching, the extinction of koalas, and mining. And I could continue creating on that series quite easily.”

Two of her most recent significant bodies of work, both interrelated, are given prominence in the survey.

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The first Monster Theatres, a large-scale installation referencing the stereotypes of circus performers and travelling carnivals created for the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art.

It was inspired by the life of Con Colleano, an Aboriginal Irish tight-rope walker from Lismore who performed in the early 1900s. Dickens sourced her materials for this body of work from vintage amusement parks and sideshow collectors, the local tip shop and gifted objects from a number of supportive art lovers.

The second, A Dickensian Circus, had been created for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, NIRIN, for the entrance of the AGNSW.

Inside vintage bird cages placed on plinths, are statues of women, clown masks, feathered figures, and doll faces. The work harks back to the 19th-century “human zoos” of First Nations people.

Looking back, Dickens says the intensity and personal nature of her work have remained constant, and sadly the issues have not changed. Questions of female identity and racial injustice underline everything she creates “because I’m still affected by those issues”.

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“I totally enjoy experimenting with different materials and techniques. Hats off to artists who can use the same materials for 30 years,” she says.

“I’m a lot looser with assemblage art. The circus work went to the next stage where the sculptural became a part of the wall works. So, the amount of collage and assemblage moved into a more intense and changed space, incorporating sculpture.”

Half the works on display have been sourced from the artist. Dickens has always saved the best works from each series as her “superannuation”.

“It’s great to see it all together. I’m not surprised there is a large body of work, and it’s a perfect visual diary of my last 30 years on the planet.”

Embracing Shadows will run from January 3 to March 12, 2023 at the Campbelltown Arts Centre.

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