Yvonne Koolmatrie | |
---|---|
Born | 1944 |
Nationality | Ngarrindjeri, Australian |
Known for | Weaving |
Awards | Red Ochre Award 2016 South Australian Ruby Awards – South Australian Premier’s Award for Lifetime Achievement 2015 |
Yvonne Koolmatrie (born 1944) is an Australian artist and weaver of the Ngarrindjeri people, working in South Australia. [1]
Koolmatrie was born in Wudinna, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. Her father was a Kokatha man, Joseph Roberts, and her mother Margaret was a Ngarrindjeri / Ramindjeri woman from the Coorong. [2] Koolmatrie grew up in Meningie and the Coorong region, later moving to the Riverland town, Berri. [2]
Koolmatrie learned her craft in the early 1980s from elder and weaver, Dorothy Kartinyeri. Their coiled bundle technique uses local spiny-headed sedge (Cyperus gymnocaulos), known to the artist as bilbili and river rushes, [2] and Koolmatrie is credited with saving the traditional Ngarrindjeri craft. [3] Koolmatrie is defiant in using her practice to dismantle the colonial myth that Ngarrindjeri culture and weaving practices are extinct. Her work stands as a testimony that the practice is alive and continuing. [4] Her weavings include eel traps, turtles, mats, bowls and models of biplanes. [1] She was excited by the potential offered by woven sedge grass and this was seen, by Stephen Gilchrist as having "freed her imagination to breathe life into the fantastic woven articulations that are now her trademark". [5] Koolmatrie work is influenced by Janet Watson's woven works monoplane (1942) and bi-plane (1942) in the South Australia Museum, Watson is an Australian indigenous woman who learn't weaving from her family. [4]
Her works are included in many major galleries including the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan; South Australian Museum; National Museum of Australia; Art Gallery of Western Australia; National Gallery of Victoria; and National Gallery of Australia. [3]
In 1997, she was selected to represent Australia at the 47th Venice Biennale with Judy Watson and Emily Kame Kngwarreye. [6] In 2016 she was awarded the Red Ochre Award, peer-assessed recognition. [3]
In 2017, Koolmatrie was represented in the third national Indigenous Art Triennial, Defying Empire, four of her woven works were included. River Dreaming (2012) was previously acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in 2016. [7]
The Australia Council for the Arts is the arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. Since 1993, it has awarded a Red Ochre Award. It is presented to an outstanding Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal Australian or Torres Strait Islander) artist for lifetime achievement.
Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
---|---|---|---|
2016 [3] | herself | Red Ochre Award | Awarded |
Coorong National Park is a protected area located in South Australia about 156 kilometres (97 mi) south-east of Adelaide, that predominantly covers a coastal lagoon ecosystem officially known as The Coorong and the Younghusband Peninsula on the Coorong's southern side. The western end of the Coorong lagoon is at the Murray Mouth near Hindmarsh Island and the Sir Richard Peninsula, and it extends about 130 kilometres (81 mi) south-eastwards. Road access is from Meningie. The beach on the coastal side of the peninsula, the longest in Australia, is also commonly called The Coorong.
David Dhalatnghu Gulpilil, known professionally as David Gulpilil and posthumously as David Dalaithngu for three days, was an Indigenous Australian actor and dancer, known for the films Walkabout, Storm Boy, Crocodile Dundee, Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Tracker.
The Ngarrindjeri people are the traditional Aboriginal Australian people of the lower Murray River, eastern Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of the southern-central area of the state of South Australia. The term Ngarrindjeri means "belonging to men", and refers to a "tribal constellation". The Ngarrindjeri actually comprised several distinct if closely related tribal groups, including the Jarildekald, Tanganekald, Meintangk and Ramindjeri, who began to form a unified cultural bloc after remnants of each separate community congregated at Raukkan, South Australia.
Ruby Charlotte Margaret Hunter, also known as Aunty Ruby, was an Aboriginal Australian singer, songwriter and guitarist, and the life and musical partner of Archie Roach.
Diane Robin (Di) Bell is an Australian feminist anthropologist, author and activist. She is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C, USA and Distinguished Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the Australian National University, Canberra. Her work focuses on the Aboriginal people of Australia, Indigenous land rights, human rights, Indigenous religions, violence against women, and on environmental issues.
Kathleen Petyarre was an Australian Aboriginal artist. Her art refers directly to her country and her Dreamings. Petyarre's paintings have occasionally been compared to the works of American Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, and even to those of J.M.W. Turner. She has won several awards and is considered one of the "most collectable artists in Australia". Her works are in great demand at auctions. Petyarre died on 24 November 2018, in Alice Springs, Australia.
The Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, usually referred to as Tandanya, is an art museum located on Grenfell Street in Adelaide, South Australia. It specialises in promoting Indigenous Australian art, including visual art, music and storytelling. It is the oldest Aboriginal-owned and -run cultural centre in Australia.
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians, that is, Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. It is generally regarded as beginning in 1971 with a painting movement that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, involving Aboriginal artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, and facilitated by white Australian teacher and art worker Geoffrey Bardon. The movement spawned widespread interest across rural and remote Aboriginal Australia in creating art, while contemporary Indigenous art of a different nature also emerged in urban centres; together they have become central to Australian art. Indigenous art centres have fostered the emergence of the contemporary art movement, and as of 2010 were estimated to represent over 5000 artists, mostly in Australia's north and west.
Raukkan is an Australian Aboriginal community situated on the south-eastern shore of Lake Alexandrina in the locality of Narrung, 80 kilometres (50 mi) southeast of the centre of South Australia's capital, Adelaide. Raukkan is "regarded as the home and heartland of Ngarrindjeri country."
Tjunkaya Tapaya is an Aboriginal Australian artist. She is most recognised for her batik work and is one of the best-known batik artists in Australia. Her works also include acrylic paintings, weaving, fibre sculpture, ceramics, wood carving and printmaking. Most of Tapaya's paintings depict places and events from her family's dreaming stories. Her batik work is of the classic Ernabella style, which eschews the Indonesian use of repeated block printed designs in favour of hand-drawn freehand designs or "walka". These "walka" are pure design and do not refer to, or contain reference to, dreamings or "tjukurpa".
Judy Watson is an Australian Waanyi multi-media artist who works in print-making, painting, video and installation. Her work often examines Indigenous Australian histories, and she has received a number of high profile commissions for public spaces.
Brenda L Croft is an Aboriginal Australian artist, curator, writer, and educator working across contemporary Indigenous and mainstream arts and cultural sectors. Croft was a founding member of the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative in 1987.
Jenni Kemarre Martiniello is an Australian Aboriginal (Arrernte) glass artist. She is best known for making glass vessels inspired by woven forms traditionally made by indigenous peoples. She is also known for her advocacy for and support of indigenous artists.
Mavis Ngallametta, née Marbunt, was an Indigenous Australian painter and weaver. She was a Putch clan elder and a cultural leader of the Wik and Kugu people of Aurukun, Cape York Peninsula, Far North Queensland. Her work is held in national and state collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Tarnanthi is a Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art held in Adelaide, South Australia, annually. Presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in association with the South Australian Government and BHP. It is curated by Nici Cumpston.
Yhonnie Scarce is an Australian glass artist whose work is held in major Australian galleries. She is a descendant of the Kokatha and Nukunu people of South Australia, and her art is informed by the effects of colonisation on Indigenous Australia, in particular Aboriginal South Australians. She has been active as an artist since completing her first degree in 2003, and teaches at the Centre of Visual Art in the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.
Lepidosperma canescens is a sedge of the family Cyperaceae that is native to south-east South Australia and Victoria. There are no synonyms.
Regina Pilawuk Wilson is an Australian Aboriginal artist known for her paintings, printmaking and woven fiber-artworks. She paints syaws, warrgarri, and message sticks. Her work has been shown in many Australian and international museums, collections and galleries. She has won the General Painting category of the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in 2003 for a syaw painting. Wilson has been a finalist for the Kate Challis RAKA Award, the Togart Award, and the Wynne Prize.
Pantjiti Mary McLean is a Ngaatjajarra Aboriginal Australian artist.
Djon Mundine is an Aboriginal Australian curator, writer, artist and activist.