In the early twentieth century, it was not a painter who shaped the public understanding of Vincent van Gogh, but a woman determined to preserve the interior life behind the work. When Johanna van Gogh-Bonger published Vincent’s letters to Theo van Gogh, she gave viewers access to the emotional and philosophical urgency that animated his paintings. The world did not simply learn how Van Gogh painted - it learned why.

Marilyn Borglum’s work invites this same kind of looking.

At first encounter, her paintings and sculptures feel physically grounded - figures, animals, symbols rendered with confidence and intention. But sustained viewing reveals something deeper at work. Borglum is not interested in appearances alone. Her practice is an ongoing investigation into perception itself: how truth is constructed, how meaning is mediated, and how belief takes shape beneath the surface of what we see.

Marilyn Borglum, Modern Medicine II, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60"

From Physical Mastery to Psychological Inquiry

Marilyn Borglum began her career with rigorous attention to formal elements - line, mass, movement. Her early figurative work, particularly her explorations of the equine form, earned recognition for its gestural power and physical intelligence. Horses were not symbolic stand-ins; they were studies in energy, structure, and presence.

Yet Borglum’s evolution as an artist mirrors a deeper personal transformation. In her late thirties, a life-altering period disrupted the formal certainty that had guided her early work. What followed was not an abandonment of skill, but an expansion of purpose.

The question shifted from how bodies move to how minds are shaped.

Marilyn Borglum, Gotta quit tomorrow, acrylic on canvas, 56 x 56"

Painting as a Tool for Questioning Reality

Borglum’s contemporary work is rooted in an examination of perception - how narratives are formed, filtered, and accepted. Drawing from historical references, particularly the visual and psychological language of the Cold War, she explores systems of propaganda, duality, and cultural conditioning. These references are not nostalgic; they are diagnostic.

Layered compositions, symbolic imagery, and fractured visual fields invite viewers to notice how easily information becomes belief, and how belief becomes identity. Borglum’s work resists clarity at a glance. Instead, it rewards sustained attention, asking viewers to sit with ambiguity and recognize the unseen structures shaping their understanding of the world.

Her paintings do not instruct. They expose.

Marilyn Borglum, chernobyl, acrylic on canvas, 68 x 58"

Why the Right Collectors Recognize Themselves Here

Collectors drawn to Marilyn Borglum’s work tend to share a particular sensibility. They are not seeking resolution or decoration. They are drawn to complexity, psychological depth, and art that remains active over time.

For these viewers, Borglum’s work functions as a companion rather than a conclusion. Each piece holds space for reconsideration, revealing new dimensions as cultural context and personal experience evolve.

This is art for those who understand that certainty is often constructed - and that the act of questioning is itself a form of clarity.

Marilyn Borglum, gimme rodeo drive, acrylic on canvas, 54 x 46"

A Living Practice

With a career spanning over four decades, Marilyn Borglum continues to challenge the boundaries of figuration through a practice that is both introspective and incisive. Her work does not offer comfort through simplicity. It offers resonance through truth-seeking.

Like the letters that illuminated Van Gogh’s paintings, Borglum’s work asks us to look beyond the visible and consider the forces - psychological, cultural, historical - that shape what we accept as real.

And in doing so, it reminds us that seeing is never neutral.

Marilyn Borglum, , acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48"