Glass Rainbow Serpent Eggs earn local artist a place in the nation’s top Indigenous art awards
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Canberra glass artist Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello OAM has been selected as one of the finalists for this year’s Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) – Australia’s longest running and most prestigious Aboriginal art award.
One of Australia’s most important showcases of First Nations art, the work of 75 finalists is on display at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, with winners to be announced in August.
Now in its 42nd year, the award celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from across Australia, sharing incredible works reflecting the continuation of cultures, responses to current affairs and unerring connections to Country. With a total prize pool of $190,000, the Telstra NATSIAA has been a career-changer for many of the finalists and award winners since its inception.
Jennifer’s work, Painted Desert Continuous Creation Story is told with six Rainbow Serpent Eggs which she has created in glass.
Artist Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello
An Irrwanyere Arrernte Imarnt woman (Lower Southern Arrernte), Jennifer moved to Canberra on a posting with the Navy, got married and ended up staying to raise her family here. Post-divorce Jennifer reconnected with her artistic roots through a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts at the then Canberra School of Arts, later ANU School of Arts and Design, graduating with a major in sculpture in 1985. In the years following, she worked in printmaking, textiles and drawing.
When an opportunity to try glass arose, when the Canberra Glassworks first opened, Jennifer expanded her artistic practice to include workshops in glass blowing, kiln forming, casting, and cold working.
“I had always been attracted to glass and before I started the workshops I was always reclaiming vintage glass, enamelling it, firing it and taking it to art and craft fairs,” she said.
“The seductive thing about glass is the way it captures light, and any time you work with, it doesn’t matter the technique or the colours you use so much as how the light impacts on the work. You get to understand how different colours reflect light and you get used to factoring that in, and every time you heat it, it changes things. Sometimes you get a really nice surprise.”
Jennifer’s selected work show the story about the Painted Desert in the far north of South Australia, which is visible from Hookeys Waterhole on the Nappamurra near Oodnadatta, where her father was born.
“I have chosen hot-blown glass Rainbow Serpent eggs to evoke the traditional concept of continuous creation evident in the evolution of this sacred landscape over 80 million years.
“This continuum is mirrored in the repeating sequences of melting, layering, marvering and heating in the making process, so multiple overlays of mineral oxides and molten glass replicate the land markings and features of the Painted Desert.”
She said she was honoured to be chosen as a finalist amongst a field of exceptional artists.
