Imbol Paintings & Icons and Emblems Series

‘Marion Borgelt was brought up in the wheat field Wimmera district of rural Victoria, which she attributes to her initial interest in the cyclic nature of the land as evidenced in her early work such as Fire, Wind and Water No 1, of the 1980’s. Her striving to find the structure or essence of nature evolved into symbolic twin shapes of cells splitting, hinting at the beginning of existence in the Voids and Vessels series. These works with their allusive symbols including hints of organic formalism lead into the Bloodlight Series and Icons and Emblems Series beginning in1995 and continuing through to 2001 in which Borgelt introduced three dimensional shaped canvases and created tension by dividing and splitting the image. With these works the refined, evocative surfaces and patterns suggest an abstract mysticism and are an expression of the power of colour to create an incandescent surface. Bold areas of red are carefully blended into black on a textural surface, intriguing in its mastery of gradation as well as its optical effects. There is an illusionary depth in the blackness, suggestive again of a void or transcendental opening up to primal memory. Yet they also hint at the rationality of the Modernist grid. This intersection between simplistic symbolic shapes and complex thought is the essence of Marion Borgelt’s art. 

Borgelt investigates the symbols, patterns, emblems and designs of communication in such work as Imbol Painting: Coptic, Celtic, Kubic No.1,exhibited in the 1998 Tapestry of Detail Exhibition. These motifs reveal links with different civilizations and religions that began before language systems. Her interest lies in the capacity of these interlaced forms and shapes to reference memories of ancient cultures. Through her weaving together of these patterns and symbols such as the concentric circle, the lozenge and spiral she creates a response to our contemporary culture whilst recognising the input from the past.

Glenis Israel, 2010