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THE AUSTRALIAN DRAWING
BIENNALE
The Australian National University, Canberra ACT and Touring 1998 -
2000
Exhibition Catalogue available from ANU - ISBN: 0 7315 2826 3
MARION BORGELT - THE LEAD LIGHT SERIES
Essay by Nancy Sever
Marion Borgelt employs drawing in two distinct ways She
sketches ideas and makes notations through drawing as an
intermediate step in producing o work of art in another
medium. She also tests the boundaries of drawing by
integrating it with etching, painting and sculpture, to create a
polymedia work of art.
Borgelt's travels in Europe North America and India have
provided her with designs and symbols that are the main
source of her inspiration She finds them in the many funerary
and religious sites she has explored, where the remnants and
symbols of ancient cultures resonate with history and convey
the presence and meaning of those who went long before.
They are then overlaid with a personal statement that
transforms them into a contemporary entity without unlinking
them from the meaning of their origins The artist investigates
the power of symbolism and design through the use of these
archetypal elements and shapes: often ancient, mostly
familiar.1 She is particularly interested in the atavistic
qualities of symbols and motifs; in their capacity to awaken
memories and evoke lost histories.
Borgelt recently spent eight years living and working in Paris
(1989-1997)) an experience that has had a profound impact on
her work. She discovered that being out of her element
culturally and linguistically, raised serious questions about
identity that had to be resolved. The nature-driven, sexual
aspect of her work gave way to a heightened engagement
with the ideas of symbols and language. It was a transition
from figurative to cerebral that paralleled and documented
her seduction by the sophistication of French culture.2
During her sojourn in Paris Borgelt developed a distinctive
approach to the materials she uses The materials including
jute, pigment and wax have been tested and probed,
resulting in a highly refined painting technique combined with
a unique approach to high and low relief sculpture. The
artist's affinity with the materials she works with - their
texture, shape and form - has resulted in a growing concern
with three dimensions. She no longer regards herself
primarily as a painter
The concerns that defined Borgelt's work in the early to mid-
nineties have also changed.3 Now she is interested in
semiotics and symbols - the archetypes behind our language
and belief systems. Borgelt started looking at language and
semiotics as a way of understanding human thought and
communication.4 She investigates light and how it can be
incorporated with signs and symbols to make a powerful
image or statement that will tap into our subconsciousness
and stir memories.
Nature is still a fundamental source of inspiration for Borgelt.5
In nature she finds endless possibilities for exploring new
terrain and new directions. She finds the nexus between
nature and science exiting especially in the realms of
fractals and chaos theory.
A fundamental aspect of Borgelt's work is its primal nature, a
force which confronts and threatens to break through our
layers of conditioning and protection. But at the same time we
are attracted to the refined delicate experience of the form or
texture in her work. This elegant counterpoise between the
experience of the primal and the surface of refinement
produces works of art that combine two equal and seemingly
contradictory states.
The works chosen for the Drawing Biennale are experimental.
Though Borgelt has worked with folded paper before, this is the
first time that she has used it as an architectural form. In these
works the artist has applied graphite to build up a reflective
surface on the paper and thus relate the drawing to the paper
itself. This series of drawings is called Lead light, a reference to
the reflective sheen of light given off by the lead-covered
surfaces of the paper and to the lead content of stained glass
windows through which light so beautifully shines. The folds of
the graphite coated paper and the form of the frame combine
to produce a tightly resolved artistic statement
On the paper used in each of these works is an original proof
of on etching on which the artist collaborated with a master
printer in Paris. Thus a work of art has been built up first with
the etched paper then with graphite and then by folding the
paper to create a three dimensional form. Three disciplines -
etching. drawing and sculpture - have been brought
together to interface and create a work of art.
NANCY SEVER
DIRECTOR, DRILL HALL GALLERY AND ANU ART COLLECTION
CANBERRA NOVEMBER 1998
1
'I have a sense of design aesthetics and the work ends up quite esoteric
on the one hand, but quite familiar on the other'
Interview with Marion Borgelt by Stewart Hawkins. The Daily Telegraph,
Sydney, 26 April 1996, p.41
2
'My sense of the world was very organic. I grew up on a farm with a
strong sense of nature around me but going to Paris broadened that cerebral
intellectual side'
Interview with Marion Borgelt by the author, Sydney, 3 November 1998.
3
Victoria Lynn described her work of that period as a 'synthesis of the
notions of growth, birth, passion, breadth, transformation and the thought
patterns of the intellectual into an abstract visual language'
Victoria Lynn, Marion Borgelt. (Sydney. Craftsman House, 1996.
p8)
4
'That is when a whole literary sense came through. A sense of language
being so critical to our systems of thinking and belief'
Interview with Marion Borgelt by the author, Sydney, 3 November 1998.
5
'Sources of inspiration can be unimaginably varied. They can be as profound
as they can be trivial, as cryptic as they can be obvious, as enigmatic
as they can be banal'
Speech delivered by Marion Borgelt to The Australian Contemporary Art
Fair, Melbourne, 4 October 1998.
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