Cryptologist's Memoir No.30
Marion Borgelt
2006 | book, beeswax, pigment, pins | accession number 774
purchased by the Art Board 2007 – Murdoch University Art Collection
© the artist

Marion BORGELT

born 1954, Nhill, Victoria
lives and works in Sydney, New South Wales

Marion Borgelt draws inspiration from subjects such as semiotics, language and phenomenology to create artistic fantasies and mysteries in the forms of painting, sculpture and installation. Her work suggests connections between culture and nature, between the constructed world and the organic world, between microcosm and macrocosm and the duality of light and dark.

During the Mid-19th Century, women of Jiangyong in Central China developed the art of Nushu, a secret script known only to the Jiangyong sisterhood. This script was developed so that the women could communicate away from the prying eyes of men. The script represented a freedom of expression for the sisterhood in a time of male domination. With their secret language they were free to discuss the joys and sorrows of marriage, their hopes and fears for the future and their cultural belief systems.

Borgelt pays homage to these important spiritual women in her Cryptologist Memoir series, where individual open books become the foundation for her artwork. Borgelt has carved symbols derived from the Nushu script into the surface of each books’ open pages.

In Crytologist Memoir # 30 the carved script has been carefully inserted onto historical photographic images of Chinese men dressed in Emperor’s gowns and military uniforms. The sculptural script is then carefully decorated with hand painted beeswax and paint.

The artist reminds us of the cyclical nature of our existence with this highly poetic series. She informs us that the gentle voice of Nushu secret’s women’s business has lapsed into silence with the passing of the last remaining Jiangyong Sister in early 2007.

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