WALTER OLTMANN (b. 1960)
Bleeder
2007
Ink on paper
210 x 100 cm
BIOGRAPHY
Walter Oltmann was born in Rustenburg at the foot of the Magaliesburg mountain range. His father worked as a civil servant and the family moved from one remote area of KwaZulu-Natal to the next. In this way, Oltmann was exposed to traditional cultural and craft practices, many of which involved the use of wire – which he continues to research and draw on in his artistic career today.
He completed his BAFA at the Pietermaritzburg campus of the University of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) (1978–1981), and graduated with his Master’s from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) (1985) – where he later worked as a Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts.
His sculptural output is comprised almost entirely of woven wire forms depicting natural phenomena – including animals, insects and fish – as well as hybrid, mutated forms which hover between human and animal, such as his famous Caterpillar Suit works. Alongside his three-dimensional works, Oltmann creates works on paper – working in pencil, ink and bleach – as well as print editions. His two-dimensional works are closely related to his sculptures and echo the finely woven lines which characterise his wire forms.
In 2001, Oltmann was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts and his solo exhibition travelled throughout South Africa. In 2014, the Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg hosted his solo show In the Weave which profiled three decades of his work.
Oltmann received the Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust’s Extraordinary Award for Sculpture in 2022, enabling him to produce an extensive body of work, undertaken in the Villa Legodi workshop at NIROX Sculpture Park, where the works were publicly shown. These works were also shown at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town as part of the exhibition Metamorphosis (November 2023 – November 2024), curated by Karel Nel and Ally Martinez.
Oltmann’s work is held in important collections locally and abroad, including at the Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town and the Seattle Art Museum, Washington.