Wide Loop Weave Dillibag #8, 2016, Jenni Kemarre Martiniello
Hot blown glass with canes, 29cm x 29cm x 11cm
Provenance: Paul Johnston Gallery, Winnellie.
Exhibited: Paul Johnston Gallery, Winnellie 2016.
Jenni Kemarre Mariniello is an award winning visual artist and writer of Aboriginal (Arrernte), Chinese and Anglo-Celtic descent. She works in print making, photography, textiles, mixed media, and most notably glass. In 2011 Jenni was recognised for her contribution to the community on an honour roll of 100 inspirational local ACT women to mark the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day. In 2013, Jenni received the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for her piece, Golden Brown Reeds Fish Trap (1).
Artist Statement
'As a contemporary urban based Aboriginal (Arrernte) glass artist, my aim is produce a body of traditionally inspired works that will pay tribute to our traditional weavers, and provide recognition for these ancient cultural practices through the contemporary medium of glass within the aesthetics of both. In my current artistic practice I have concentrated on the incredibly beautiful forms of traditional woven eel traps, fish traps, fish scoops, dillibags and coiled and open weave baskets by Kaurna, Ngarrinjerri, Gunditjmara, Arrernte and NE Arnhemland weavers., seeking to evoke the interplay of light and form found in those objects, and in so doing, create contemporary glass works which are also objects of cultural as well as artistic significance.
In these works, hot blown glass provides an interplay of form and light that is very evocative of the light and form seen in traditional woven objects, while at the same time allowing me to experiment with various weaves through the use of single, double straight and double twisted glass canes made from opaque colours overlaid with translucents' (2).