‘As a contemporary urban based Australian Aboriginal (Lower Southern 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. I have concentrated on the incredibly beautiful forms of traditional woven eel traps, fish traps and baskets, fish scoops and dillibags of our peoples, 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.’ - Jennifer Kemarre Martinello, artist’s statement.

Jennifer Kemarre Martinello OAM is a writer, poet, cultural ambassador, mentor, activist, textile artist, and glass artist of Lower Southern Arrernte, Chinese and Anglo-Celtic descent. She explores weaving in in her practice of making glass vessels. In this hot blown glass work she has created complex opaque and translucent glass canes to evoke the form and colours of native plant fibres from which traditional fish traps are woven.