“Two Horses in the Desert,” 48″ x 80″, acrylic

We are thrilled to announce the addition of Marilyn Borglum to our gallery roster. Born in Minneapolis and now based in the Kansas City area, Borglum holds a BFA and MFA in painting from Colorado State University and comes from a family of celebrated artists. She is the great-great niece of sculptors Gutzon and Solon Borglum, the former most famously commissioned for the Mount Rushmore National Memorial.⁠
⁠
Working across painting and drawing, Borglum uses the horse as her central form, a lifelong study of energy expressed through line, first inspired by her grandmother’s da Vinci art history books.⁠ Her figurative work turns that same command of gesture toward portraiture, examining personality, perception, and the human tendency to project our own realities onto others.⁠
⁠
Shown in galleries and international art fairs across the US, her work is held in numerous prestigious private collections.⁠ Her moody and predominantly figurative works—using acrylic paint on canvas or charcoal on paper—question the discrepancy between reality and our perception of reality.

Marilyn Borglum was almost born with a pencil or paintbrush in her hand. Her family endorsed her interest in drawing at a very young age. Her grandmother Marion Ewald and her grandmother’s uncles Gutzon and Solon Borglum were all professional artists. In doing so, at the age of just four years old, she was emulating Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawings of horses.

Marilyn Borglum in her studio

“Appaloosa on Desert Sand,” 36″ x 36″, acrylic

From a visual perspective, her painterly practice is strongly inspired and influenced by masters such as Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon and Ben Shahn. With every work, the American artist is searching for the ideal degree of execution, in which the form expresses the emotion from within by bold and unique painterly interventions. Think of her mark-making within the pictures. The organic lines have traces within her childhood drawings, resulting in an almost lyrical dance of different realities.

“Yippee-Ki-Yay,” 70″ x 60″, acrylic