Eel Trap

2003

Australian Aboriginal, Ngarrindjeri people, Berri, Coorong District, South Australia, born 1944

When gathering sedge grasses to weave these sculptures, Koolmatrie has observed the degradation of the Murray River wetland. Not only are sedge grasses diminishing, but many of the creatures once caught in traps -- eel, fish, prawns -- are disappearing as the water becomes increasingly contaminated.

--Pam McClusky, Curator of African and Oceanic Art, 2015

Native spiny sedge grass

25 9/16 x 43 5/16 in. (65 x 110 cm)

Gift of Margaret Levi and Robert Kaplan

2019.20.5

Provenance: [Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney, Australia]; Margaret Levi and Robert Kaplan, Seattle, Washington, 2003; by gift to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2019

Photo: iocolor, Seattle

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art from the Kaplan & Levi Collection, May 31 - September 12, 2012 (Nashville, Tenessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, June 23 - October 15, 2017; Madison, Wisconsin, Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, January 26 - April. 22, 2018; Austin, Texas, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, June 3 - September 9, 2018; Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, Audain Art Museum, October 5, 2018 - January 28, 2019). Text by Pamela McClusky, Wally Caruana, Lisa Graziose Corrin, and Stephen Gilchrist. No cat. no., pp. 27, 151, reproduced fig. 11, pl. 21.

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, March 17 - July 28, 2024 (Los Angeles, California, LACMA, September 17, 2023 - January 21, 2024; Ottowa, Canada, National Gallery of Canada, October 25, 2024 - March 2, 2025; New York, Museum of Modern Art, April 20 - September 13, 2025).

Published ReferencesKoolmatrie, Yvonne, et al. Riverland: Yvonne Koolmatrie. Exh. Cat. Adelaide, Australia: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2015; reproduced p. 112 [not in exhibition].

Cooke, Lynne, ed. Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction. Exh. Cat., Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, University of Chicago Press, 2023; p. 219.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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