Marion Manifold_Philip Gray Biographical Essay, 2014
Marion Manifold_Identity and Fragmented Bodies, 2013
Marion Manifold_ Marie Antoinette through the Notebook, 2012
Marion Manifold_Journey to the Stony Rises – Liza McCosh’s Volcanic Series, 2009
Marion Manifold_The Land – The Stony Rises Project, 2009, RMIT
Marion Manifold_Of Essence & Lace Trimmings, 2003
© Marion Manifold, Australian Artist
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is the property of Marion Manifold.
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Excerpt from Stony Rises Project:
My art deals with ancestral memories and identities of women of the Manifold family, an early pioneering family of the Western District of Victoria of which I am a part. I am the fifth Marion in this Victorian family.
I am an artist and historian living on a volcano overlooking the Stony Rises. My home Wiridgil, (meaning flying squirrel), is made from the earth’s basalt, ‘bluestone’, and was built for my husband’s grandfather’s brother, Tom Manifold who was son of one of the original explorers and pioneers of the district, and whose legacy includes the Camperdown clock tower.
The early pioneering Manifolds felt at one with the land and called it ‘the wished for land’. After initially being confronted by the Indigenous inhabitants, the Manifolds had long-lasting friendships and working relationships with the local Aboriginal people across at least the next 80 years.
Living in a Manifold family homestead I am surrounded by and live the history of the land. I recreate the sinewy manna gums (Eucalyptus viminalis) used by Walter Withers as coulisses to frame the scene. The fragmented women and iconography constructed from old photos, wills and letters, and the decorative idioms that followed – patterns from blinds, personal belongings, porcelain and china in my home – show the losses and little luxuries that were part of early women settlers’ lives. I feel the presence of the women who came before me, and layer meanings and time in my work.
Marion Manifold, 2009
Material may not be reproduced without
the express written permission of the artist.
