- belinda aucott, high definition habitas #35, march-may 2017
Back in 2007, when Turner Galleries moved to new premises in Northbridge, we invited renowned Australian artist Marion Borgelt to have her first solo exhibition in Perth to celebrate. Ten years on from this inaugural exhibition, we continue to enjoy working with Marion.
She draws inspiration from subjects such as semiotics, language and phenomenology to create a personal visual vocabulary rich in metaphor and dualities. Borgelt is that rare phenomenon; an artist whose abstract artmaking sends out a force field of emotion. Her paintings, sculptures and installations harness powerful visual forms, they brim with references to symbology and nature, alluding to grand themes of time and space, of stasis and change, evolution - from past, present to future, reinvention and repetition. The sphere and the rhythmic circularity of life - be they lunar, female cycles, seasons - is a constant metaphor in Marion Borgelt's work, and several fine examples can be found in this current exhibition.
A series of ten evolving blue and white spheres suggest the phases of the moon. Silvered discs wax and wane. Timber balls crack like eggs. An installation of exquisite lunar disks of graduating colour and sizes resonate. A gold lunar wave shimmers against a night black wave. Borgelt's sensitive selection of materials oscillates between the organic (glass, gold leaf, beeswax, wood, duck eggshell) to the inorganic (synthetic paint, perspex and stainless steel). Such rigour in her choice and application of materials underpins an artist whose practice reflects the allegorical approaches and symbology of two-halves combining to make a whole, in a practical and literal sense.
The lunar themes continue with three large paintings, titled Lunar Tango 1, 2 and 3. As the titles suggest, these paintings pulsate with dancing energy, as though the lunar disks are writhing through a tangle of elongated forms. Her ongoing series of Liquid light paintings, with their slashed and pinned canvas surfaces, also shimmer and shift with movement, literally in this case, as the viewer walks by. Once again, the physical experience of these works, their repetitive patterns, acid colour and sense of speed is exhilarating as they evolve into three dimensions. The visual optics in Borgelt's work traverse themes of movement, change, and metamorphosis. And while her works of art are not Op art per se, they are optical in their visual richness through their interplay with texture, light and colour.
Many people have written about Marion Borgelt's grasp of the paradox of the physicality of time and space with a tantalising awareness of an inner resolution.
In an interview with the artist Victoria Hynes writes:
At the core of Marion Borgelt's art is her ability to challenge herself in her art practice. She is not afraid to experiment. However, her underlying themes remain the same: "My work has really remained about metaphysical subjects and the sense of time, how time impacts, cycles, what are the cycles that we experience that impact and define our life, natural cycles. Our own lives are a natural cycle". Perhaps the raison d'être for her art remains connected to her early experiences of the natural world'... The artist's energy, vision, and output are undiminished. When asked about her legacy, she laughs. "I'm just a little bee in the beehive collecting the pollen. Perhaps what I see is that my art will offer the legacy of beauty. I love things that are beautiful, but also have strength. There is strength in the pieces. They are done with a no-holds-barred attitude. The work is without compromise."
(Interview excerpts 1 June 2016).
Marion Borgelt's artworks can be found in 45 major public collections and a further 26 corporate collections. Her professional career spans some 40 years, and includes over 50 solo exhibitions with a major 20-year survey of her artworks held at the Newcastle Gallery in NSW in 2016. She has spent significant periods of time in Paris and New York, and her works can now be found in international collections. She lives and works in Sydney, where many of her large scale commissioned artworks can be found.
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- TURNER GALLERIES | showcasing contemporary art
at 470 WILLIAM STREET NORTHBRIDGE WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6003 - TURNER GALLERIES HAS NOW CLOSED.
This website is an archived record of the exhibitions and artwork shown at the gallery. - Turner Galleries acknowledges the Whadjuk Nyoongar people as the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters where Turner Galleries is situated, and pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.
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