Karla Marchesi is an Australian artist based in Berlin whose hyper-natural still life paintings reimagine the 17th-century “Impossible Bouquet” tradition through a distinctly contemporary, maximalist lens. Engaging Australian and European contexts, her work explores contemporary social and cultural experience through works that entwine autobiography, humour and ideological critique.

Marchesi holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (2004) and Honours in Fine Art (2007) from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, where she was awarded the University Medal for academic excellence and the Honours Thesis Prize. In 2003, she received the Philip Bacon Galleries Prize for Excellence in Drawing, enabling a semester of study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, USA.

Marchesi has held solo exhibitions in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, Luxembourg and Germany. In 2012, she undertook a studio residency at Atelierhaus Mengerzeile, Berlin, which preceded her first international solo exhibition at Kunsthalle M3. In 2026, she was awarded The Gold Award at the Rockhampton Museum of Art, Queensland’s richest painting prize. She had previously received First Prize in the Redland Art Awards (2010), Third Prize in the Redland Art Awards (2022), the Wilson Visual Arts Award (2012), and an Australia Council for the Arts Early Career New Work Grant (2013).

Her work is held in public and private collections throughout Australia and internationally, including the Museum of Brisbane, the University of Queensland Art Museum, Queensland University of Technology, Australian Catholic University, Swiss Re and several regional galleries.

Marchesi is represented by Jan Manton Gallery, Brisbane, Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne, and Verena Kerfin Gallery, Berlin. From her Berlin studio, she maintains an active exhibition program across Australia and Europe.