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Gloria Fletcher Thancoupie,…
Sale Title:
Auction House:
Auction Location:
Melbourne
Date:
24-Mar-2024
Lot No.
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Description:
Gloria Fletcher Thancoupie, (egg), stoneware with oxide decoration, incised signature to base 'Thancoupie', with metal stand, 13 cm high. Dr Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher James Ao (1937-2011) was an Australian sculptural artist, educator, linguist and elder of the Thainakuith people in Weipa, in the Western cape York area of far north Queensland. She was the last fluent speaker of the Thainakuith language and became a pillar of cultural knowledge in her community. She was also known as Thankupi, Thancoupie and Thanakupi. Thancoupie played a dynamic role in first Nations Australian arts, not only in her leadership of ceramics as a form of cultural expression for first Peoples, but was among the first to be recognised as an individual contemporary first Nations artist in Australia. The use of ceramics in exploring ancestry, aesthetics and country is a recent development in the arts of first Nations artists in Australia. Unlike the first Peoples across the Americas, Africa and Asia, ceramics is not an ancient means of cultural communication in Australia, but rather a contemporary movement which has arisen in response to a changing creative environment for Australia's first Peoples. Thancoupie's body of work and educational career is testament to the ways in which the Art of Thainakuith people, and more broadly first Nations peoples, continues to transform whilst remaining poignant records of ongoing cultural significance. Thancoupie's work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia as well as galleries and museums in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Queensland. Eran 2010, a sculptural piece is at the entrance to the National Gallery of Australia.
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Price:
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Category:
Unclassified