Artist-in-conversation: Mikala Dwyer with Guest Curator Toni Ross
Artist talk
Join artist Mikala Dwyer in conversation with Guest Curator Toni Ross to discuss Dwyer’s most recent project – an aquatic-themed installation, Penelope and the Seahorse.
Dwyer's project Penelope and the Seahorse alludes to the hippocampus and its multiple meanings: the genus name for the fragile and now endangered sea-horse; the equine fish in Greek mythology who drew Poseidon’s water chariot; and the structure within the brain often associated with memory and spatial navigation.
About the speakers
Mikala Dwyer is one of Australia’s most significant innovators in sculpture, performance and installation art and has been exhibiting since the early 1980s. Her mixed media installations often imbue objects and materials with an animistic energy that revokes the conceit of reason’s mastery over the non-human world.
Dr Toni Ross is Honorary Senior Lecturer (Art Theory), Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture, UNSW Sydney and Sydney reviewer for Artforum. She has published widely on Australian and international contemporary art and is currently researching art engaged with wellness culture and ecological themes.
Header image: Mikala Dwyer, work in progress for her exhibition Penelope and the Seahorse, 2023