UNTITLED
Gloria Fletcher Thancoupie
hand-built stoneware with incised designs decorated with slip and oxide
24.0 cm height
signed on the base
Private collection, Melbourne
Thancoupie was born in Napranum, close to Weipa on the western coast of Cape York. An active elder of the Thaynakwith people, she is regarded as the country's foremost indigenous ceramic artist. Her pots depict designs based on stories from Thaynakwith country (story pots) and represent her way of continuing traditional law and history. 'A beautiful pot can lead on to lots of ideas, for enjoyment and teaching. Pots can go anywhere conceptually, but also physically - outside in the garden, your fireplace, the kitchen. But you can't look at my pots without seeing symbols. They resemble my moods and character and my understanding of ceramic history, but they also carry my whole Thaynakwith story, so they are cultural as well.'1
1. the artist in conversation with Simon Wright in Seear and Ewington, Bought to Light II: Contemporary Australian Art 1966-2006 from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection, Queensland Art Gallery Publishing, Brisbane, 2007, p. 158