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Jenni Kemarre Martiniello facts for kids

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Jenni Kemarre Martiniello (born in 1949) is an amazing Aboriginal artist from the Arrernte group in Australia. She is famous for creating beautiful glass artworks that look like traditional woven baskets and traps made by Indigenous peoples. Jenni is also well-known for helping and supporting other Indigenous artists.

Jenni's Early Life

Jenni Kemarre Martiniello was born in Adelaide, Australia. Her father was Aboriginal and Chinese, and her mother was Anglo-Celtic. They met while working at a store and got married. This was a brave choice at the time because it was unusual for people from different backgrounds to marry.

Jenni loved art from a young age. When she was in high school, she took evening art classes at the Adelaide School of Art. After high school, she joined the navy for two years. She worked with radar and assessed weapons. She left because she wasn't happy with how service members were treated.

Later, Jenni met and married her husband, who was from Italy. They moved to Canberra in the late 1960s and had several children. After ten years, they divorced.

After her divorce, Jenni went back to school. She studied sculpture at the Canberra School of Art (now part of the Australian National University School of Art). She tried many different art forms like drawing, printmaking, and photography. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985. She then continued her studies in philosophy and art history.

Jenni's Career

Teaching and Writing

Jenni Martiniello taught at the University of Canberra. She also taught Indigenous art history at the Yurauna Centre, which is part of the Canberra Institute of Technology. While teaching, she kept creating her own sculptures and drawings.

In 1999, Jenni started the ACT Indigenous Writers Group. She published several poetry books. In 2003, she was recognized as an ACT Creative Arts Fellow for Literature, which is a special award for writers.

Helping Indigenous Artists

In 2003, Jenni and another artist named Lyndy Delian started an organization called Indigenous Textiles and Glass Artists (ITAG). This group helps Indigenous artists and connects them with other art organizations. They work to overcome challenges that Indigenous people have faced due to past colonization and discrimination. ITAG also holds art shows and offers workshops for artists to learn new skills.

Jenni and Lyndy also created the Honouring Cultures program. This program works with Canberra Glassworks to help regional artists learn glassmaking skills. It also allows international artists to share their skills and work together.

In 2006, Jenni founded Kemarre Arts. This was the Australian Capital Territory's first "independent Aboriginal-run social enterprise." It helps artists in many ways, like:

  • Helping them apply for grants.
  • Offering programs to improve their professional skills.
  • Publishing their work.
  • Giving advice on pricing their art.

In 2012, Kemarre Arts won the ACT NAIDOC Award for Most Outstanding Agency. This award recognized their great work in supporting Indigenous artists.

Making Glass Art

Jenni Martiniello started working with glass in 2008 with Lyndy Delian. They received a grant to teach Indigenous artists how to make glass art through workshops at Canberra Glassworks. Jenni learned these skills alongside about 20 other artists.

In 2011, Jenni was an artist-in-residence at the Thomas Foundation. Here, she began to experiment with weaving patterns in glass. She was inspired by the traditional Aboriginal way of weaving. As a child, she had seen woven items like fish traps and bags in museums. She also watched women, including her Arrernte grandmother, weave things like eel traps, dilly bags, and message sticks.

Jenni combines this childhood inspiration with her glassmaking skills. She uses a special Venetian technique called canework to make glass look like woven forms. She uses different colors to create art that reminds people of the Australian landscape. She works with a team to create her pieces. This is common for glass artists and is also like Indigenous weaving circles. In both cases, artists share their knowledge and skills with younger generations by showing them how it's done.

In 2013, Jenni Martiniello won the important National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award for her artwork called Golden Brown Reeds Fish Trap. This is the most respected award for Indigenous art in Australia. The piece was inspired by woven fish traps from northeast Arnhem Land and Cape York. It took a team of seven artists to create.

Jenni has received many other awards and honors, including:

  • Canberra Critics Circle Award for Visual Arts (2011, 2013)
  • Wollotuka Acquisitive Art Prize (University of Newcastle, 2012)
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Visual Arts Fellowship (2013-2015)
  • Bay of Fires Art Prize (2016)

She was also awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2022. This is a high honor in Australia.

Her artworks are displayed in many major collections around the world, including:

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