Walter Oltmann’s Wire Tapestry

The South African artist, Walter Oltmann, is known for his exploration of prehistory through experimentation with materials.

Oltmann uses various materials, including cloth, thread, wire and paint, to reveal hidden stories. The studio collection has an embroidery of a coelacanth, a favourite subject for the artist, and the art collection has two watercolours of people wearing protection based on beetle wing cases, and a triptych of a life-sized coelacanth. This website shows the triptych and the man-as-beetle images as well as some of the other work by the artist.

In 2005 a piece by Oltmann was shown at the Michael Stevenson Gallery in South Africa. Wire Tapestry used 4 kilometres of wire to create panels that were then stitched together. Although a review of the work at the time was not complimentary, the piece shows the strength that comes from such meditative craft practices and reads today in a much more favourable light.

The whereabouts of this piece is unknown.