Jenni Kemarre Martiniello: Freshwater Saltwater Weave

Exhibition

Freshwater Saltwater Weave is a series of glass works by contemporary urban-based Arrernte artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello. Her works in hot blown glass, coldworked glass and canes are inspired by the aesthetics of Aboriginal woven forms.  The works in this exhibition span the last five years and are inspired by dilly bags, eel traps, fish traps, fish baskets, and bicornual baskets.

Residency

Martiniello visited Kluge-Ruhe as a resident artist September 12 – October 14, 2018. She worked with UVA students in Professor Bill Bennett‘s beginner and advanced sculpture students in creating new work inspired by an object that represents their family story. After creating plaster or sand molds, the Chrysler Museum of Art‘s Glass Studio brought their mobile glass hot shop to the sculpture department to pour hot molten glass into the molds, creating a work in glass. Martiniello was also a resident artist at the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio in Norfolk from September 27 – 30, 2018 and created numerous finished works in collaboration with the Chrysler team and gaffer Steve Ciezki. Beyond these projects, she spent extensive time drawing objects in Kluge-Ruhe’s art storage space, sat in on UVA classes in Art History and Anthropology and presented her work in an artist talk, a gallery tour and Night at the Museum. She also visited the Fralin Museum of Art, Historic Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art at VCU, Monticello, Montpelier, the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History.