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Details
- Date
- 2015
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- synthetic polymer paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- 806.0 x 214.0 cm
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Gift of the artist 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 129.2018
- Copyright
- © Mikala Dwyer. Courtesy Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
- Artist information
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Mikala Dwyer
Works in the collection
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About
In these large banner-like paintings – 'Possession', 'Backdrop for Saint Jude', and 'Sigil for heaven and earth' (2015) – Mikala Dwyer conjures the origins of abstract art in the early 20th century, particularly the work of the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) whose spiritualist beliefs and participation in seances led to some of the first purely abstract paintings. Dwyer calls on the diagrammatic nature of Klint’s work in devising her own paintings, referring to a genealogy of innovative women artists who have worked outside rationalist social and cultural norms. Biblical references to Saint Jude and the Virgin Mary also appear in sculptural elements that sit atop the draped canvases, in keeping with Dwyer’s longstanding interest in how the secular meets the mystical in contemporary experience. More obliquely, the works gesture to the transformative power of art.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
The Letterbox Marys, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Paddington, 26 Nov 2015–18 Dec 2015
Mikala Dwyer: A shape of thought, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 26 Aug 2017–04 Feb 2018
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Bibliography
Referenced in 2 publications
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Robb Leigh, 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres, Adelaide, 2020, 117 (colour illus.) (detail).
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Wayne Tunnicliffe, Susan Best and Helen Hughes, Mikala Dwyer: a shape of thought, Sydney, 2018, cover (colour illus., detail), 6 (colour illus., detail), 27, 29, 30 (colour illus.), 106 (colour illus.), 130, 132 (colour illus.), 135.
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