The manner in which we interact with the land describes and defines our idea of our individual and collective identity. The ways in which we mark the land through carving on its surface, measuring, traversing, organising and orchestrating the topography, give tangible expression to our desire. Likewise the marks made by our ancestors bear witness to their desire and presence within the landscape.

So too, identities are described through our relationship with water; the migratory journey, the religious significance, the quest for essential nourishment, are all part of the construction of personal and collective identity.

My work takes as its genesis, the complexity of these relationships between cultures and the natural world.

My interest in the marking of the land was first aroused by the discovery of a series of rock carvings on the shores of Iron Cove in Sydney's Inner West, close to where I live. These carvings were linked both geographically and in content to the waters of Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River. From this initial encounter I began to study ancient Celtic carvings in Britain and Ireland, remnants of my ancestral culture.

The significance of water was again emphasised both through the religious beliefs of the ancient Celts and through the experience of my convict ancestors, transported to Australia from Ireland in 1820. In ancient Celtic belief, the water's edge is a mystical place between this world and the next. Indeed many of the carved stones I studied in the Megalithic burial sites of the Boyne Valley, bore marks which resembled the sacred geometry of ripples on the surface of water.

My paintings express my fascination with these lost languages of marks. I am also fascinated by the various interpretations offered by archaeologists, historians and artists. It is the sense of wonder that arises from their unauthored status, which imbues these enigmatic markings with imaginative power. Similarly, water is a constant in my creative life. I live near the water and every day I observe the patterns and colours of its ever-changing surface.

REVIEWS

Sonia Barron, Canberra Times

"I must say from the start that this is one of the more visually coherent and well-hung exhibitions at the Spiral Arm in some time. Walter's paintings and gouaches in particular are vibrant in colour and well resolved. She displays considerable skill in building up her surfaces, producing lovely textures which enhance the richness of her colours creating a glowing aura of emotional intensity.

Taken as a whole, her images come across as a celebration of her own Celtic roots, which is also that of many Australians. She succeeds in communicating a sense of the magic she experienced when confronted with these ancient relics."

Sonia Barron. Canberra Times Sept. 22nd, 1995. Review of Men Scryfys/Written Stones. Spiral Arm Gallery. Kingston. ACT.

Pamela James. In Scattered Company

"The landscapes of Marilyn Walters are replete with forgotten images and memories of place. They tantalise with proffered fragments of ancestral stories and myths. Drawn with rich layers of worked pastels and paints, the surfaces shimmer with lights and darks, which connect with passages to the past. For Walters, the marking of the land is a potent means through which ideas of the self, both personal and cultural as well as attitudes to place, are expressed. Particularly connected to the migratory experience, the kfr5agmenting of cultural memory is a constant underpinning of these works. In the marks made by Anglo-Celtic emigrants upon the alien soil of colonial Australia, the needs of settlement, the aesthetic of ownership as well as the longing for the more familiar, were made visible. Walters describes the central tenet of her work as 'the power to revive forgotten Celtic cultures in Australia whilst recognising the inappropriate practices which Anglo-Celtic cultures have introduced into this landscape in their attempt to find or make a place within it.

For Walters the resolution of a problem both technical and aesthetic is to be found through the process of layering, both microscopic in its investigation, as well as in the presentation of the universal. The use of several over-lays of diaphanous glazes during the painting process reflects the dichotomy of chaos versus a natural, inherent order."

Pamela James. In Scattered Company. Catalogue essay travelling exhibition, Boston, Campbelltown, Sydney 2001.