Marlene Gilson

Marlene Gilson (Wathaurung people) creates richly detailed multi-figure paintings that work to overturn the colonial grasp on the past by reclaiming and re-contextualising the representation of historical events. 

Learning her Wathaurang history from her grandmother, Gilson began painting while recovering from an illnes.  Her meticulously rendered works display a narrative richness and theatrical quality akin to the traditional genre of hisotry painting.  Gilson, however, privileges those stories relating to her ancestral land which covers Ballarat, Werribee, Geelnog, Skipton and the Otway Ranges in Victoria.  Often including her her two totems, Bunjil the Eagle and Waa th Crow, Gilson's paintings not only reconfigure hisotrical narratives but display her spiritual connection to Country. Source: Martin Browne Contemporary