After studying for four years I discovered I was a Victorian Koori. So we do more line work rather than dotting, she said.

She is now studying to be a teacher at the Indigenous Education Centre at Kangan Batman TAFE and is hoping to make a difference to others like herself.

It’s important that state wards know you have to find that one person that believes in you and grab them with both hands and it’s amazing what can be done, she said.

A lot of my pictures are to say sorry, and I’m back where I should have been, she said.

Karen won the Arnold Davis Scholarship in 2007 and was awarded the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association indigenous student of the year in 2008.