Kohlmeyer took up painting in her 30s and achieved wide recognition for her work in art museums and galleries throughout the United States.

[5] She then studied at the painting school of the New York artist Hans Hofmann, known for his use of color, who influenced her in her decision to give up representational art for abstraction.

[6] Her early work was primarily in a gestural style influenced by Holfmann and other Abstract Impressionists, including Arshile Gorky and Mark Rothko, whom she met in New York.

[2] Kohlmeyer, inspired by her interest in South American art and the work of Miró developed "...a distinctive vocabulary of hieroglyphs, shapes, and signs, all organized in a loose grid, that hovered among abstraction, writing and emblem.

[2] Kohlmeyer reached the height of her career later in life, completing several major commissions, including a project for the Equitable Life Assurance Society building at 1515 Poydras Avenue and a still-standing major installation of twenty painted metal sculptures for the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas on the Mississippi riverfront, titled Aquatic Colonnade.