Born: 1944, Australia
Died: NA
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
Like other Indigenous Australian artists mentioned, Yvonne Koolmatrie’s art is a form of cultural preservation. In her late 30s, she attended a 1982 weaving workshop led by Dorothy Kartinyeri. Also known as Aunty Dory, she was one of the last people practicing the coiled bundle technique distinctive to Ngarrindjeri weaving with sedge grass and river rushes, and she died soon after that workshop. Koolmatrie was left to teach herself. “When I left Aunty Dory, I picked all the wrong materials,” she said later. “But, from making mistakes, this is why I am who I am today.”
Koolmatrie went on to master the traditional style as well as experiment with her own variations, with her first exhibition in 1987. She also studied cultural objects from the South Australian Museum, “to put my story in my weaving.” She teaches others weaving, from fellow Aboriginal artists like Jonathan Jones to younger generations to her own mother. Arguably best known for her eels traps—modern re-creations of a traditional tool—her work was brought to the international stage when it was featured at the 1997 Venice Biennale, arguably the most prestigious international art event. In 2016, she received the Australia Council for the Arts’ Red Ochre Award, a lifetime achievement honor for Indigenous artists. The South Australian Museum, National Museum of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, and National Gallery of Australia all hold or have held her works in their collections.