Marion Borgelt

Marion Borgelt (born 1954) is a contemporary Australian artist based in Sydney. Borgelt originally trained as a painter and now her practice encompasses painting, installation, sculpture and mixed media. With a career spanning over 40 years, she has held more than 50 solo exhibitions and participated in over 180 group shows globally. Borgelt's work is currently held in public collections including the National Gallery of Australia and Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, and in international museums such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA and New Zealand's Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

Borgelt has been awarded global commissions including by Baker McKenzie for their Sydney offices in Barangaroo and AMP Capital at 123 Pitt Street, Sydney, and by Melco Crown Resorts, Macau, for their Morpheus (hotel) design by Zaha Hadid Architects.

Her work is held in private collections across the United States of America, France, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Dubai, Morocco, United Kingdom, Germany, Myanmar, China and Mexico. and the Muswellbrook Art Prize (2020).

Early life Borgelt was raised on a farm near Nhill, in the Wimmera district of Victoria. Between 1973 and 1976 she undertook a Diploma of Fine Art at the South Australian School of Arts before completing a Graduate Diploma of Secondary Art Teaching at Torrens University Australia in Adelaide in 1977. Her investigation of these influences through diverse mediums, has led to collaborations with René Tazé etching atelier in Paris (1990), with Fondazione Berengo Studio in Murano, Italy (2006–2007)

Career 1980s

The natural landscape that surrounded Borgelt during her rural upbringing inspired her early work. Anna Voigt wrote concerning Borgelt's art practice that, "The journey of the spirit and of artmaking are inseparable realities for Marion Borgelt". Borgelt's childhood in rural Australia remains integral to her art practice. As for the landscape itself, she "was always both impressed and haunted by the vast flat open space of the Wimmera. In summer it felt like we lived under the sun. It was hot and dusty, wheat fields shimmering as far as the eye could see. It is a place where the earth meets the sky with nothing much in between. There were, of course, the wonderful vernacular structures of the wheat silos, which dotted the horizon. I called them 'The Cathedrals of the Wimmera'. When I was about seventeen, I was desperate to leave.” In an interview with Candida Baker for The Australian Weekend Magazine (1999) Borgelt commented that the landscape gave her an understanding of nature as a rich source of material, and was intrigued by its cyclical patterns. This interest in natural cycles is demonstrated in Fire, Wind and Water No. 1. Natural details and a focus on the minute also emerged in her works as seen in Athenian Netherworld and the Night Eye, the subject matter of which has been compared to woven skin cells or webs. Borgelt began exhibiting at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in 1982. The suite of symbols featured in her Primordial Series was influenced by Celtic art forms, the Kabbalah belief system and Buddhism and Hinduism. Noticeable in these works is the presence of the circle shape, which often occurs in Borgelt's oeuvre. While various shapes have different significance for Borgelt, the circle, as she states," [...] embraces to me the most, and the oval too to a certain degree, but the circle seems to represent to me 'totality.' Because the circle is [...] a contained thing without [...] any tension.". This symbolic language continued in her series Bottled Histories where timber panels were painted and layered with bees wax before being paired with collected vessels. Symbols painted onto both vessel and panel cross-referenced each other, exploring a recontextualization of the objects.

In 1998 Borgelt was commissioned by News Corp Australia to develop a large-scale site-specific installation for their Sydney corporate headquarters. This commission brought Borgelt back to Australia. Primordial Alphabet and Rhythm was installed as a 15m high work that comprises 12 large painted panels and 10 low relief sculptural discs. Collectively, the work represents the flow of communication, waves and energy.

2000s

During the 2000s Borgelt's work developed breadth through experimentation with new mediums and forms, including a shift into sculpture. A theme of dualities emerged in Borgelt's work which, as highlighted by journalist Paul McGillick for Art & Australia, considered tensions between “our biological and emotional natures, the body and the spirit, our everyday consciousness and the powerful sense that there are worlds beyond this one, our sense of adventure and our fears, the senses and the mind”.

Borgelt drew upon her early interest in natural cycles by depicting the passage of time, using examples such as lunar sequences, as a means to explore these all-encompassing forces. In 2004 Borgelt was commissioned by JPMorgan Chase to create a work for the 32nd floor of their offices at the Harry Seidler building overlooking Circular Quay. Her 4000 kg work Time and Tide (wait for no man) arranged sculptural elements in a spiral form, depicting phases of the lunar cycle, suggesting that corporate life is governed by a global clock. In 2005 Borgelt was commissioned to complete her second large-scale outdoor maze. Returning to memories from her rural childhood, and inspired by photographer Peter Leaver's image of approximately 2000 sheep being mustered on Mungadal Station near Hay in Victoria, Borgelt designed Round Up Maze. In the same year she was invited to join the judging panel for the Blake Prize, and would again be invited in 2018. For these works, Borgelt painted her canvases on both sides, then sliced the canvases, precisely twisting and pinning them to reveal the inner layer. This technique introduced a new relationship between the viewer and artwork; whereby the work would ripple in motion, revealing itself differently as the viewer changed position. though the kinetic effect of Borgelt's twists add a hypnotic dimension. This suite led to a 4.5m triptych commissioned by the Sule Shangri-La Hotel in Myanmar and an additional suite for Crown Towers at City of Dreams (casino) in Macau. In 2005 Borgelt created commemorative installation Man's Destiny Resides in the Sole for Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. Also in 2006 Borgelt further explored lunar cycles in a collaboration with Fondazione Berengo Studio glass Murano, Italy.

In 2008 Borgelt expanded the optic qualities of her work in her Strobe Series which rendered hand-painted lines of colour together with deliberately incorporated curves that created an optical illusion that has been compared to a seismograph. In 2011 she was commissioned by Bates Smart to create Candescent Moon, a large-scale work of a lunar cycle for 101 Collins Street, Melbourne. An optical illusion plays with the eye when moving from one side to the other, encouraging interactivity with the work. In 2016 a 20-year survey, Marion Borgelt: Memory & Symbol, was held at the Newcastle Art Gallery. These works, spanning from 1993 to 2016, prompted recognition of the invention, consistency and versatility in Borgelt's practice. In 2017 Borgelt was commissioned to create a kinetic work that spans a three-storey atrium for Baker McKenzie at Tower One, Barangaroo, New South Wales. The motorised work, Cascadence, alludes to the notion of descending droplets as coloured elements rotate. In 2018 Borgelt was commissioned by Melco Crown Resorts in Macau to create a suite of large digital face-mounted photographs for 52 lift lobbies of the Morpheus (hotel), design by Zaha Hadid Architects.

2020s In 2020 AMP Capital commissioned Borgelt to create Musical Spheres to be situated within the music precinct of Angel Place, on Pitt Street Sydney. This kinetic work uses crankshaft mechanics to gradually move the large coloured discs in a motion akin to hammers gently hitting piano strings.

Awards Borgelt has been the recipient of awards including: 2006: Visual Arts Board, New Work Grant 2001–2003: Australia Council Fellowship 2002: Judges Award, Hutchins Art Prize 2001: Australian Paper Art Awards (acquisitive) 1998: Blake Prize, Highly Commended 1997: Visual Arts/Craft Board, New Work Grant

Selected publications Borgelt’s work has been featured in publications and textbooks including:

Title Author Publisher Year The Land and its Psyche Julian Beaumont, Felicity Fenner, John McDonald Macquarie Group and New South Publishing 2012 Studio: Australian Painters on the Question of Creativity John McDonald, R. Ian Lloyd R. Ian Lloyd Productions 2007 The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch, Emily Childs Miegunyah Press 2006 BORGELT Felicity Fenner, Candice Bruce 21C Publications 2000 Marion Borgelt. Art & Australia Victoria Lynn Craftsman House 1997 Artwise Contemporary 2 Glenis Israel Jacaranda Plus, John Wiley & Sons 2008 Senior Artwise Glenis Israel Jacaranda Press 1999