Mikala Dwyer

Biography

For more than 20 years, Mikala Dwyer has pushed the limits of installation, sculpture and performance, establishing herself as one of Australia’s most important contemporary artists. She has had solo shows at major institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa. She has also participated in the Sydney and Adelaide Biennales. She was included in Face up: Contemporary Art from Australia at Hamburger Bahnhof in 2003, and Verso Süd at Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in 2000, curated by Franz West. She has had several residencies, including at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne and Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. She has received numerous scholarships, grants and awards, and her work is held in public collections throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Research

Full of uncertainties and contradictions, Dwyer’s complex installations never lend themselves to definitive interpretations. Her work has been described as 'profoundly sociable'; she asks viewers to come in, participate, and find their own meanings. She sets up open-ended conversations that draw our attention to the unseen – to invisible materials such as helium, or the voids between her forms, but also to hidden histories and our own highly personal relationships with magic, memory, sexuality and ritual. While playful and exuberant on their surfaces, her works almost always have something darker beneath the surface. The question Dwyer asks us is whether we’re prepared to dig for it.

Recent Exhibitions

Sydney Biennale, Cockatoo Island, Sydney, 2010

Swamp Geometry, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, 2008

Black Sun Blue Moon, Hamish Morrison Galerie, Berlin, 2007

Mystic Truths, City Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2007

Face Up, I Maybe You, Hamburger Banhof National Galerie, Berlin, Germany, 2004

Still Life, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, 2004

Mikala Dwyer, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2001

Orientation, Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul, Turkey, 1995

Research Supervision

Joy Bye ,PhD, 'Active imagination: Applications in the art-making process.'

Vicky Brown, MVA, 'The image of sound.'

Carla Cescon MVA, 'From 100 days and nights in search of the Ramones
to Bury the Hatchet, notes on a participatory practice.'

Emma Davidson, MVA, 'Futures and pasts: Hauntology, and the radical reclamation of the present.'

Kelly Doley, MVA, 'Performing the artist: the intersection between theatre and
contemporary art.'

Ben Terakes, MVA, 'In and Out: Intimacy/Abjection/Catharsis.'

John South, MVA, 'Cell or asylum.'

Awards & Grants

2011-2009 Australia Council for the Arts: Fellowship
2000 Australia Council for the Arts: New Work Grant
1990 Australia Council: New Work

Professional Membership

Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney, 2010 - 2008, 2005
MCA, Sydney, Design Advisory Board, 2009
Black Gallery, Director, 1992
First Draft Gallery, Director, 1988 - 1989

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