Mikala Dwyer is one of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. Since the mid-1980s she has developed an internationally recognised sculptural, performative and installation practice that explores ideas of shelter, childhood play, modernist design, personal biography, magic and the occult. These works play with the permeable and changeable nature of the materials she uses: plastic, fabric, Perspex, clay, wood, plants and sound are but a selection, all coming together to explore the relationship between viewer and object. Alongside her more spatial works, Dwyer continues to explore exciting and engaging themes through video and painting, whilst incorporating her interests in early 20th-century art movements, including Dada, Constructivism and Arte Povera throughout her practice. Altogether these influences and various forms of media create a playful and fantastical body of work, experimental undertakings exploring matter and metamorphosis.
Dwyer lives and works in Melbourne; her works have been collected by a number of public collections, including: the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney; MCA, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; MONA, Hobart; The University of Queensland Art Museum; and Auckland City Gallery. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place in a number of key institutions, including: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2017); University of Sydney Art Gallery, Sydney (2014); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2013); Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2012); Aratoi Museum, Masterton, New Zealand (2008); Kunstraum, Potsdam (2007); Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand (2005); and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2002).