MARION BORGELT: Memory & Symbol
Free exhibition
MARION BORGELT: Memory & Symbol heralds Borgelt’s return to the Gallery since her last focus exhibition Hourglass was held in 2003. A highly accomplished and prolific artist, Borgelt has over 40 years of arts practice and experience. Her works of art are held in national, state and regional art gallery collections.
In 2016 this exhibition is much larger and broader than in 2003 featuring three key thematic areas of the artist's practice from 1990 to 2014. Beginning with Borgelt's seminal triptych Weaving the labyrinth: Design I, Design II, Design III 1997-1999 from the Newcastle Art Gallery collection, the exhibition traces the artist's investigation of symbolism and language, materiality, visual optics and time. The period from 1993 marks a progression in the artist's practice when nearing the close of her eight year studio tenure in Paris and return to Australia.
Borgelt's 1996 works Quadrant Lore and Icons and Emblems, draw upon ancient motifs, recalling Celtic mark making and a visual lexicon pre-dating written language. The notion of the artist effectively "mining history" is an important aspect of the artist's practice in the '…capacity to evoke ancient memory and remind us of buried histories and that which has been forgotten.'
Memory and Symbol brims with conscious and unconscious references to symbology and nature, an exhibition that pays homage to one of Australia's most evocative and enduring contemporary artists.
'Marion Borgelt’s artworks are vibrant and undulating constructions that take varied forms as paintings, sculptures and installations. Each artwork employs a lexicon of symbols and motifs that are drawn from her deep interest in semiotics, language, cosmology and phenomenology.'
Owen Craven Artist Profile, September 2016. Read the full article here.
Related documents:
MARION BORGELT: Memory & Symbol exhibition catalogue
