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Karma Barnes
Beyond the Object: Material memory and transformation within impermanent landscapes.
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Her installations are participatory spaces of reflection; where environmental grief, material transformation, and shared presence converge to create quiet acts of witnessing and renewal.
Karma Barnes is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice traverses installation, expanded painting, and socially engaged processes. Her work delves into the interplay between ecological crises, collective memory, and perceptual shifts, crafting immersive environments that serve as temporal markers of transformation. Drawing from critical ecology, embodied research, and trauma-informed frameworks, Barnes constructs evolving installations that reflect conditions of collapse and regeneration. Through site-responsive methodologies and participatory engagement, she invites viewers into spaces of reflection, emphasizing resilience, impermanence, and the interconnectedness of internal and external landscapes.
 Mapping Internal & External Terrains - Community Cartography PhotograperPhotographer: Yaka Adamic Courtesy of the artist |  Everything is Made of Everything ElseCourtesy of the artist |  Tocca La TerraCourtesy of the artist |  Orogenies of the SublimeCourtesy of the artist |
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 CO-LapsesPhotographer: Davidee Zugna Courtesy of the artist |  PalimpsestPhotographer: Key Witness Courtesy of the artist |
BIO
Karma Barnes (b. 1979, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand) is an interdisciplinary artist based on Bundjalung Country, Australia. Her practice spans installation, expanded painting, and socially engaged processes, addressing themes of ecological crisis, collective memory, and material transformation. Barnes’ large-scale, often immersive works are site-responsive and rooted in critical ecological and trauma-informed methodologies.
She has exhibited internationally and participated in residencies in Aotearoa, Europe, and Southeast Asia. In 2024, the New Mexico State University Art Museum acquired two major works from her Relative Terrains series, marking a significant institutional milestone. Her work has been featured in Artlink Magazine, Journal Cittadellarte, and publications connected to the Musée du Louvre and Vandana Shiva’s Navdanya Foundation.
PUBLICATIONS
Karma Barnes’ work has been featured in key international publications focused on ecological, socially engaged, and material-based art. Her practice was profiled in Artlink Magazine, where Claire Watfern positioned her among artists responding to ecological crisis through site-based methods. She has also been featured in Journal Cittadellarte, which examined her use of environmental adversity, biomimicry, and installation as modes of inquiry.
Barnes contributed to practitioner research through co-authored publications with Many Hands International (Promoting Wellbeing in Timor-Leste through the Creative Arts) and reflective writing through The MIECAT Institute. Her inclusion in Année 1: Le paradis sur terre, published by Actes Sud in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre, and her contribution to Bhoomi: The Living Soil with Vandana Shiva’s Navdanya Foundation, further underscore the depth and conceptual rigor of her expanded practice.
TEMPORAL ECOLOGIES
Karma Barnes creates immersive installations that function as living ecosystems—responsive environments shaped by time, erosion, and collective presence. Her materials—earth pigments, sediments, suspended canvases—act as vessels of memory and impermanence. Rather than presenting fixed narratives, her work invites viewers to witness the slow unfolding of transformation, where collapse and regeneration coexist. Deeply rooted in ecological and trauma-informed frameworks, these spatial compositions challenge traditional boundaries of authorship and objecthood. Through this evolving, process-based approach, Barnes crafts spaces for reflection, resilience, and a renewed sense of interconnection with the more-than-human world.
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