Mikala Dwyer in Mixed-Up Childhood at the New Gallery

Mikala Dwyer’s garment-like hangings adorn one wall, suggesting a costume party has taken place.

In 1999 the University of Queensland held the exhibition Avant-gardism for Children, which featured 10 contemporary artists whose work has an affinity with kindergarten activities. One artist from that show appears in Auckland Art Gallery's Mixed-Up Childhood.

Born in Sydney in 1959, installation artist Mikala Dwyer is no stranger to the New Zealand art scene. One of numerous Australian artists regularly exhibiting at the Michael Lett Gallery, she was involved with the transtasman Anzart project in 1983 and has gone on to exhibit throughout New Zealand, including Auckland Art Gallery's 1994 exhibition Aussemblage.

She has a long-standing relationship with Wellington dealer gallery Hamish McKay and has work in the Auckland Art Gallery's permanent collection and the Chartwell Collection.

The large bright perspex letters of her 1998 work I.O.U., bought by the Chartwell Trust in 2001, acknowledge the importance of New Zealand's relationship with our nearest neighbour, referencing the "I Am" of Colin McCahon's iconic Victory Over Death, which was given to the Australian Government and later appropriated by Australian artist Imants Tillers.

Dwyer playfully employs materials such as stockings, lipstick, shagpile carpet or modelling clay, resulting in installations that have been described as resembling alien playgrounds. They have a sense of familiarity but retain an enigmatic strangeness.

In the entrance, Dwyer's two contributions to Mixed-Up Childhood are the first you will see on entering the New Gallery. A collection of garment-like hangings adorn one wall, suggesting a cloakroom where some peculiar costume party has taken place. They invite participation, offering a regressive game of dress-ups.

There are also two video works. One features a classroom of children cheerily waving. It seems to greet you, inviting you into a world of tiny furniture and finger painting.

The wave continues on and on, tirelessly outlasting the typical child's attention span. Looped and slowed down, there is an eerie quality.

Waving back at them from a monitor on the opposite wall (and at patrons as they leave the gallery) is a room of elderly people enjoying what is often referred to as their second childhood. Diverted from their activities, they also wave continuously with a slightly disturbing degree of enthusiasm, as if they'll never receive another visitor.

Contradicting the usual relationship in energy levels, this group has been sped up, perhaps toying with the relative way time appears to speed up as we grow older and years pass at an increasingly alarming rate, while a week can seem an eternity to a child.