Thanakupi, 2008 by NorthSite Contemporary Arts

T h a n a k u p i Ceramic

Exhibition

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s Cover image: Dr Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher James AO, Weipa 2008. This catalogue celebrates the major body of work created by Dr Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher James AO for her solo exhibition Thanakupi: Ceramic Exhibition. This exhibition is presented by KickArts in association with Jennifer Isaacs Arts and Publishing. KickArts Contemporary Arts is a not for profit company limited by guarantee and is supported financially by Arts Queensland and the Australia Council for the Arts through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. Sponsors and Partners Arts Queensland Australia Council for the Arts QantasLink Boom Sherrin Publisher KickArts Contemporary Arts 96 Abbott Street Cairns QLD 4870 Australia Postal address: PO Box 6090 Cairns QLD 4870 Australia www.kickarts.org.au info@kickarts.org.au Telephone: 07 4050 9494 International telephone +61 7 4050 9494 Published in association with the exhibition, Thanakupi: Ceramic Exhibition, held at KickArts Contemporary Arts in association with Jennifer Isaacs Arts and Publishing, November 2008 to February 2009. Jennifer Isaacs Arts and Publishing Pty Ltd 12 Mc Laren Street North Sydney NSW 2060 PH: 02 9922 7129 ISBN 978-0-9803402-3-5 Dimensions of works of art are given in millimetres (mm), height preceding width preceding depth where applicable. Publication team Artist: Dr Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher James AO known as ‘Thanakupi’. Director and Editor: Rae O’Connell Curator: Rae O’Connell Writers and contributors: Jennifer Isaacs, Kirsten Fitzpatrick, Rae O’Connell Artwork and catalogue listings: Jennifer Isaacs/Thanakupi Design and production: Sam Creyton Photography: David Campbell unless indicated otherwise Photography of aluminium sculptures: Provided courtesy UAP Proof reading: Beverley Mitchell, Ingrid Hoffman Printed by: GEON Printing, Cairns With thanks to: Victor Steffensen Lyn Bates Kim McDonald Artisan Matt Trevett-Lyall

KickArts Contemporary Arts Board Of Directors Mike Fordham, Chair Jenni Le Comte, Secretary Robyn Baker Jeneve Frizzo Robin Maxwell Billy Missi Roland Nancarrow Andrew Prowse Gayleen Toll Robert Willmet KickArts Contemporary Arts Staff Rae O’Connell, Director Beverley Mitchell, Shop Manager Linda Stuart, Administration Manager Samantha Creyton, Curator Andrew Weatherill, Business Development Manager Jan Aird, Marketing Manager Leith Maguire, Administrator Morgan Brady, Administrator © KickArts Contemporary Arts 2008 Publication Design © KickArts Contemporary Arts 2008 Foreword © Rae O’Connell 2008 Introduction and Selected Biography © Jennifer Isaacs 2008 Thanakupi © Kirsten Fitzpatrick 2008 Stories and information on artworks © Thancoupie Fletcher and Jennifer Isaacs Ceramic works, aluminium sculptures, drawn motifs © Thancoupie Fletcher 2008 Photography © David Campbell 2008 Copyright KickArts Contemporary Arts, the artist and authors 2008. This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher. No illustration in this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the copyright owners. Neither may information be stored electronically in any form whatsoever without such permission. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the publisher. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher.

F u n d i n g

P a r t n e r s

KickArts is supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

S p o n s o r s

Good memories of sharing with family and friends. Thanakupi

C o n t e n t s

Foreword – Rae O’Connell

Introduction – Jennifer Isaacs

Thanakupi – Kirsten Fitzpatrick

Love Magic Pots

Aluminium Sculptures

Platters

Selected Biography

F o r e w o r d Thanakupi A celebrated Australian artist and a leader in her community, Thanakupi is a creative, passionate and remarkable woman and leaves a deep impression on everyone who meets her. She is inspirational in her approach to all her work, whether as a ceramic artist, writer and recorder of her Indigenous language or in teaching children and adults the importance of culture. This catalogue accompanies Thanakupi’s solo exhibition at KickArts Contemporary Arts in 2008 and also presents Thanakupi introducing some significant places in her country of Wik. The ceramic surface provides Thanakupi with a platform for transferring her cultural heritage into visual storytelling. The strength in her imagery is evident. These bold graphic images have been used in her ceramic practice and for printing on textiles for many decades and still remain pertinent today as they resonate with the strong, timeless design sense that characterises all of her work. Thanakupi’s visual arts practice is connected to her country and cultural heritage. She has been fostering the importance of this heritage with many generations through her School Holiday Program which she coordinates and hosts at Bouchat during the breaks. Thanakupi welcomes all to these programs, with participants coming from other remote Cape York communities and the Torres Strait as well as international visitors from the United States and Europe. Artists contribute to the programs and camp with Thanakupi on the beach. Each program has a different focus and the children and adults learn how to collect bush foods, to fish from the sea and shore, gather materials for art making and learn traditional dance and storytelling. As we celebrate this new work in her exhibition, Thanakupi continues to work with children, teaching them the importance of culture. Next year, in 2009, Thanakupi will celebrate 20 years of her School Holiday Program at Bouchat and a festival will be held to celebrate this significant commitment and achievement. It has been a pleasure to work with Thanakupi; she has made a profound and lasting impression on all of us at KickArts. Rae O’Connell Director Napranum. Beneath the Wongai tree. 6

I n t r o d u c t i o n Thanakupi — Pages torn from the land. Cairns 2008 Thanakupi’s ceramics have been constantly exhibited throughout the world since her first little exhibition in Sydney in 1973. The changes in her life’s circumstances have been marked by corresponding phases of her art practice, from a period when throwing dominated, to a roughened aesthetic with earth-like surfaces and salt and ash glazing on hand-made coiled, slab and moulded work. Then came a time of elegance, when the pure round earth forms emerged, each meticulously scratched until the form was, in her terms, perfect. A return to Weipa and readjusting to life there, leaving her Cairns Studio behind, was sad but she was close to her heartland and took up the challenge of retaining culture and encouraging reconciliation. Throughout these phases, the images of her animals, birds, sea creatures and plant forms derived from the characters of her legends, her story-telling of great Creative events in her own landscape – herself in fact. This exhibition marks Thanakupi’s most recent work phase in her home at Weipa. With a new kiln, and in a comfortable home in semi retirement, she has never been busier. She hurtles from meeting to meeting, cultural events, healing sessions with family, and yet sometimes, often, thinks of art. In the past two years Thanakupi has been recognised as the most significant visual artist in Australia, due to being chosen by the Australia Council’s Visual Arts Board for their Emeritus Artist Award in 2007. This year she was also honoured by the Queensland Premier and became an official Queensland Great, with a commemorative plaque in her name in Roma Street Brisbane. Today Thanakupi’s capacity to heave heavy clay pots around, or to stack kilns, stand for long periods or walk distances is curtailed by the normal wear and tear on joints and muscles of age. But this has not deterred her inventive determination to keep handling and working clay. Much of the imperative comes from her desire to show stories, impart information to the children, yet the master potter is present in the conceptual framework for this and in the execution. She draws in clay for herself too, as a form of poetic expression and as a memoir. The current forms are smaller and they are physically manageable. They can be worked on in a seated position, and are not so heavy as to hurt her hands. The love magic pots remain important: these at present have taken the place of the large spheres and represent not only the love/fertility themes from previous exhibitions, but also tell stories – especially of women’s initiation custom – the making of grass baskets by Ngwerr, for

example. The newest form however, and the work that exemplifies her late Weipa Phase, is the earth surface platelet. Thanakupi sometimes calls these platters, the mark of her training in functional ceramics. She always looks for a possible use for her conceptual sculptures – a reason for ordinary people to have her work in their homes. Weipa is undergoing a massive increase in mining activity as the bush is demolished for new areas to be scoured for the red surface bauxite. Thanakupi’s Thaynakwith country is under mining now, and only a narrow corridor will be left to enable her to travel to her sacred Bouchat beach where she conducts the children’s holiday camp each term. Her platters represent the surface of the earth as, scoured and powdery, and after rain, it cracks and lifts in forms reminiscent of these shapes. Thanakupi incises, drawing on both the upper and underside of the forms, depicting sandbars, wells, salt pans, trees, birds and rivers. Each has quite specific meaning – perhaps an event at a place – the corroboree at Beening Creek when tribal land boundaries were sorted out, or the moment in ancient time when Wacombe told Dingo to stay at Wandrapine, and, drinking from the well he either fell in or went to sleep there, and is still there today. When camping in the bush Thanakupi will always interpret the howling of dingos in the night in relation to place and legendary events. In decorating the underside of her forms Thanakupi is also representing what is still there in or under the land, whether mined or not, and what will always be there. Thus, the underside of her platter depicting Ngwerr is a solo grass basket, which will, to Thanakupi and her descendants always represent the eons of women ancestors who harvested the grasses planted by the bandicoot, and who learnt to make these bags in order to carry food to their families. These clay shards, with their drawn illustrations, tell stories and are less about elegance or reductive design than about Thanakupi herself, her own physical self, the land, its changes, and her hope for cultural continuity through children knowing who they are by knowing the stories. Massed in an exhibition, they are a magnificent group of testaments, of texts, and they create a lasting statement. Like clay tablets holding Egyptian hieroglyphs, they are pages from the history of Cape York; offering centuries of meanings held in the rivers and lands of Albatross Bay, Cape York. Jennifer Isaacs 7

T h a n a k u p i

Thanakupi is a senior Indigenous artist, community elder and cultural custodian. She has won numerous accolades for her considerable achievements, in-cluding honorary doctorates, an Order of Australia and Reconciliation awards, making her one of the most highly decorated artists in Australia. Often described as Australia’s most significant Indigenous ceramic artist, her place in Australian art is unique. Her historically unprecedented work, which exploded into the ceramic world in the early 1970s, gave Australian ceramics new depth. Thanakupi’s distinctive works are now held in the collections of State and national galleries in Australia as well as in major international collections. Thanakupi’s works are significant in the context of both Australian art and craft. In terms of the latter, although clay had a long history of ceremonial use by Indigenous Australians, there was no fired pottery tradition until European colonization. Commercial potteries, established to produce industrial items, were the first manifestation of a local ceramic production. As time passed and art pottery began to be produced, an interest in making recognisably ‘Australian’ ceramics grew. By the 1930s, with the arrival of the Arts and Crafts movement in Australia, this reached critical mass, inspiring a flood of pottery adorned with native flora and fauna including lizards, kangaroos, kookaburras and gum leaves. Many potters, including Carl Cooper and William Ricketts, also appropriated imagery directly from Aboriginal art or used Indigenous peoples as subject matter for modeled figurative forms. But like many imported ‘movements’ which become divorced from their philosophical roots, the Arts and Crafts movement in Australia functioned as a decorative ‘style’ devoid of its reformative drive. The outcome was a body of work that made a surface visual connection with Australia. With the emergence of the contemporary craft movement in the 1970s, potters were again interested in producing distinctively Australian work, but the use of figurative imagery and appropriation of Indigenous art were no longer acceptable forms of expression. The art ceramics of this period were heavily influenced by another imported movement – the Anglo/Oriental school. This was based on Asian traditions as well as folk art. Like the Arts and Crafts movement, distance from its origins also led to it becoming a style. The next generation of art ceramics featured refined functional, wheel-thrown forms with minimal Asian-style brushwork or natural glazes as decoration. Artists used local clays but purely for material ends and there was no immediate visual or conceptual connection with Australia. It was around this time that Thanakupi attended the National School of Art in Sydney. Even in a seemingly liberated art environment, the expectation was for students to follow the imported Anglo/Oriental model. The restrictions inherent in the genre were palpable in Thanakupi’s earliest work. Her thrown vessels were tight and the imagery had a calligraphic element in keeping with the dominant aesthetic. These works could be discussed in the context of contemporaneous output of potters such as Eddie Puruntatameri who, under

the influence of Michael Cardew and other influential Anglo/ Oriental potters, experimented with applying traditional motifs to wheel-thrown forms. However, in the late 1970s, a significant technical and conceptual shift occurred in Thanakupi’s work. This gave rise to an unheralded body of work that expressed Indigenous Australian culture through the ceramic medium in a new way. Thanakupi abandoned the potter’s wheel and broke free from the Anglo/Oriental aesthetic that would dominate Australian ceramics for the subsequent decades, reaching its epitome in the sublimely minimal forms of Gwyn Hanssen Pigott. Thanakupi began using plaster moulds that allowed her to hand-build larger forms. This, in combination with an increasingly urgent drive to record the stories of her people, led to the development of a repertoire of symbolic iconography. As the two collided, she began to cover the surfaces of her freeform vessels with images representing a world beyond the ordinary. Ceramics now became a medium to document epic events and the supernatural deeds of ancestral beings. Such grand and visionary subject matter had never been seen before in Australian ceramics and probably not been expressed in the medium anywhere since antiquity. These new pieces had a deep Australian resonance. In Thanakupi’s hands clay reclaimed its traditional ceremonial and sacred significance, adding a layer of personal meaning to her work. As she shifted from modelling imagery on the surfaces of her vessels to incising lines, the surety of mark-making and spiritual power that characterises great Indigenous art became apparent. Her images incised in stoneware evoked petroglyphs rather than the brushwork of Asian aesthetics. They spoke of the land and primal forces yet remained firmly in the present. This work acquired an authority and presence more often evident in art media such as painting. Thanakupi’s subject matter and the narrative element immediately set her apart from contemporaneous ceramic practice. Many of her peers in the 1970s were still interested in creating ‘Australian’ ceramics. To this end they either worked with sculptural forms or firing or glazing techniques that created painterly, atmospheric surface effects evocative of the land. Both approaches necessitated intellectual effort, either in projecting monumentality onto a small-scaled object, or in overcoming the limited ability of painterly surfaces on 3D forms to transport the viewer into an imagined world. In contrast Thanakupi’s ‘story pots’ encapsulated a relationship with her land that extended back tens of thousands of years. The concerns with earth and land eventually faded in contemporary Australian ceramics and were replaced with a new school of minimal design-allied ceramics. White and black pared-back matt surfaces, referencing complex art theories, expressed the artistic environment in which intellect was primary. Beauty, stories, mythology and 9

metaphysical allusions were firmly sidelined. Of course all objects tell stories, but these new ceramics told the stories of industry and separation from the natural world; tales of human alienation. An underground movement of sculptural or ornamental work arose in opposition to this, but it was so marginalised it remained nameless and undocumented. The artists working in this area, the inheritors of the revolutionary Funk movement, were often driven by a postmodern desire to manipulate languages and histories of ornament. Thanakupi’s work remained external to this ongoing dialogue. Her imagery was not decoration, it did not comment upon other decorative styles or postmodern concepts. Based on a real connection to the natural world, issues of identity and the role of language as a cultural carrier, each of her objects conjured associations of a profound nature. From the beginning one of Thanakupi’s fundamental aims was to establish a more permanent record of Indigenous histories traditionally told in impermanent media such as sand drawings or performance. This didactic impulse in no way impacts on the aesthetic quality of her work. This is due to the artist’s innate sense of design. She employs repetition of forms and rhythmic flowing lines and other graphic devices but the integrity and depth of her subject matter takes this beyond mere pattern. The North and South Rivers of Napranum 1982 (in the Comalco collection), a ceramic mural depicting the stories of the Thaynakwith and other peoples of Napranum is a spectacular example. Over three metres high and nearly four wide, this ambitious major work reads as a powerful semi-abstract design, but at the same time the codified symbolic language communicates a different history and cultural worldview. The non-Indigenous Australian inability to ‘see’ in this way informs much of Thanakupi’s work. In a recent interview with Simon Wright, i. the artist talked about using Thomom, the blind snake, to represent Australia and the current lack of understanding of the interconnectedness of all its peoples. As a designer, Thanakupi has applied her skills to projects ranging from public artworks to bark paintings and textiles. Her bold textile designs have been printed on fabric, furnishing and garments as well as tea-towels and tablecloths. In every instance though, these designs aim to somehow record or share the rich traditional knowledge of her people, to encourage another way of ‘seeing’. Her Bush Tucker tablecloth printed with linear forms, some recognisable and others not, is an appealing decorative pattern but it is also an almost encyclopedic record of the edible foods of the Weipa region. The irony of this tablecloth more than likely supporting a very different range of food, is appealing to the artist. Thanakupi is also dedicated to preserving the Thaynakwith language and the recent publication of her book documenting the language, culture, food, medicine and art of the Thaynakwith people, testifies to her commitment to this goal. As a community Elder, she has a passionate interest in supporting and encouraging arts education for children and young people and works 10

tirelessly to preserve Indigenous culture. Important as all this work is, the main expressive medium for Thanakupi is her ceramics. The new work produced for this exhibition revisits the plants, animals and ancestral beings that helped create the land around Weipa. Certain vessel shapes, the sphere, the ‘love magic’ pots and open platters recur. As usual, her spherical vessels, whose form represents fire, unity and the world, are particularly striking. In Guiree the flying fox the imagery appears to slowly orbit the surface, reinforcing the notion of their cosmic significance. Movement is important and evoked in many ways in Thanakupi’s work. The rhythmic energy and dynamism of the figures in Knoolu the mosquito Corroboree, reverberates beyond the surface of the vessel. In Kwintangan Qui, the mullet spawning platter, the fish flow across the surface, following the clay contours as if a waterway, but they also continue on the underside creating an impression of seamless, endless motion. As mentioned earlier, this distinctive imagery sets Thanakupi’s work apart from mainstream Australian ceramics but her approach to technique also distances her from contemporaneous practice. Technical mastery, the endless pursuit of perfection so ingrained in ceramic history and tradition, is secondary to the urgency of the creative impetus driving her forward. Clay is shaped on her body and hand-marked. Cracks and other characteristics of clay – anathema to ceramicists and the basis to destroy works – are irrelevant. Thanakupi’s art is primarily about meaning. Although categorised as a ceramicist, her works effortlessly bypass associations with previous Australian ceramics on many levels. Her medium might be clay but her vessels and ceramic objects have a role beyond domestic or utilitarian. Like other great Indigenous art of the early 1970s, Thanakupi’s unique form of cultural expression arose in a context of social repression, and a sense of liberation invigorates her work. It is an affirmation of Indigenous culture. Given the subject matter and her intent it is more appropriate to view her artistic output in the context of other major Indigenous artists, such as Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who also developed a unique iconography and employed it to express profound spiritual and cultural beliefs. Thanakupi has created an extraordinary body of work empowered by her dedication to her purpose as well as her singular vision. Her single-minded pursuit of this vision has given rise to individualism and subsequently, truth. This places her work amongst that of great Australian artists of all cultural backgrounds. Kirsten Fitzpatrick i. Wright, S. ‘Thanakupi: First hand in Weipa, Brisbane and Sydney’

Art Monthly Australia no.196, Dec 2006 – Feb 2007, pp 36-39

References: Cochrane G. 1992 The Crafts Movement in Australia: A History NSW University Press, Kensington Fahy, K., Freeland, J., Free, K. and Simpson A. (eds) 2004 Australian Art Pottery 1900-1950, Casuarina Press, Sydney Mansfield, J. 1988 A Collectors Guide to Modern Australian Ceramics Craftsman House, NSW National Gallery of Victoria, 2002, Yikwani: Contemporary Tiwi Ceramics NGV, Victoria Thancoupie, 2007 Thanakupi’s Guide to Language and Culture: a Thaynakwith Dictionary Jennifer Isaacs Art and Publishing, North Sydney

Bouchat beach, artists’ camp. Thanakupi’s school holiday program. 11

L o v e

M a g i c

Right: Mosquito men Buff stoneware clay, oxide decoration 150 x 125 mm 12

P o t s

The mosquito corroboree. All the animals traveled to the corroboree ground and danced two by two, dancing all day and all night and all day and all night.

Front view

Back view

Peetheree the willy wagtail planting wild date palms in a line Raku clay, mid range firing, oxide under glaze 150 x 130 mm 14

Centre view

Peetheree willy wagtail walked along to Trunding and all the way planted date palms. He stopped and looked back to see they grew in a straight line. We can eat the core of the growing tip – we cup-a-mari them also to keep for the days when we have no meat.

Front view

Nggwith (wingless bats) Buff Raku, stoneware firing, oxide linear decoration, shino clear glaze finish 200 x 150 mm 16

Back view

Just look at the bats, which are wingless because when they

were cooked the wings fell off. The dark circle in the belly shows that the bat is clean and ready to eat. The story or legend is about two young brothers who ate flying foxes when they should not have done so and the tribe punished them. The boys were sent into the sky and are now seen there – they are the Gemini twins, we call them Nggwith, and they are a reminder of the traditional food laws.

Front view

Baby mullet Buff Raku, stoneware firing, oxide linear decoration, shino clear glaze finish 170 x 130 mm 18

Back view

Baby mullet swimming. Kwintangan the mother mullet swam up and down Mission River, or Nggwath Eran, looking for a place to lay her eggs. She came to Gonbung, or Napranum, and put them there on the rocks. When the little fish emerged she then swam beside them, up and down the rivers: Hey, Embley, and Mission. She is the mother of our tribes.

Front view

Back view

Enjarl the goanna Raku clay, mid range firing, oxide decoration 160 x 170 mm 20

Centre view

Enjarl the goanna ran off with Moocheth the ibis in the legends. Enjarl (the female one) has hidden her eggs in the sand.

Front view

Back view

Ngwer the bandicoot collecting walam grass Raku clay, mid range firing, oxide under clear glaze 150 x 180 mm 22

Centre view

Ngwer the bandicoot was out hunting and saw some special walam grass so she gathered it and wove a basket. Then, seeing it was good to use for food collecting, she planted it all along the edge of the creeks and it became the test of womanhood: making a grass basket to feed your family.

Front view

Kwintangan the mullet laying eggs on the rock Raku clay, mid range firing. Oxide under clear glaze 160 x 130 mm 24

Back view

Kwintangan, the mother mullet, swam up and down Mission River, or Nggwath Eran, looking for a place to lay her eggs. She came to Gonbung, or Napranum, and put them there on the rocks. When the little fish emerged she then swam beside them, up and down the rivers.

Front view

Guiree, flying fox Buff Raku, stoneware firing, oxide linear decoration, shino clear glaze finish 170 x 140 mm 26

Back view

The story or legend is about two young brothers who ate flying foxes when they should not have done so and the tribe punished them. The boys were sent into the sky and are now seen there – they are the Gemini twins, we call them Nggwith, and they are a reminder of the traditional food laws.

Front view

Knoolu mosquito corroboree Raku clay, white slip, mid range firing. Oxide under glaze 170 x 150 mm 28

Back view

The mosquito corroboree. The mosquitoes are dancing, singing ‘mmmm, mmmm’. All the animals answered the mosquito people calling them. They travelled to the corroboree ground and danced two by two, dancing all day and all night and all day and all night.

Front view

Family – Arraw the emu, Muchith the ibis, Golpondan the mud lark or sandpiper Raku clay, mid range firing. Iron and manganese oxide under glaze 180 x 150 mm 30

Back view

These are the special birds from our land: the creation

people. Arraw is the the emu and his wife is Muchith and their little child is Golpondan. There are so many stories for the places on my lands. I have been drawing them for all my life as an artist and telling the children so they know in the future.

Front view

Thomom the blind snake Raku clay, mid range firing. Oxide under glaze 140 x 110 mm 32

Back view

This is my design that I called the ‘Snake of Australia’ because all Aboriginal peoples have this, and I see the design when I look at the map.

Front view

Back view

Peetheree the willy wagtail planting wild date palms Raku clay, mid range firing, oxide under glaze 160 x 145 mm 34

Centre view

Willy wagtail walked along from Hey River to Trunding and

all the way planted date palms. He stopped and looked back to see they grew in a straight line. We can eat the core of the growing tip – we cup-a-mari them.

Front view

Thungganh (flying fish) Buff stoneware clay, oxide decoration 140 x 125 mm 36

Back view

Thungganh (flying fish) is one of the main ‘Fishermen’ in our legends. He wanted to trap fish so he created sand bars in the river at Waldrun. These are still there, first made so Thungganh could catch the fish trapped between the sand bars and in the tidal pools of Waldrun River as the tide went out.

Front view

Mother and child gathering shellfish Buff stoneware clay, oxide decoration 140 x 110 mm 38

Back view

Chivarri the man paddles in his bark canoe along Hey River

looking for the mother and son. She sees him coming round the island and she runs quickly. The mother has been gathering shellfish with her child. As she ran away her string bag tore, and some of the shells fell as she ran along. This made shell mounds.

A l u m i n i u m

S c u l p t u r e s

‘I thought it might be interesting to change it from clay and I tried bronze and it was alright, but then I thought of aluminium that comes from bauxite because that is my land. So the example I have chosen is to show the aluminium is from where the bauxite is. So…the desecration of the land comes to bauxite, comes to aluminium. The aluminium comes out of the bauxite. The stories come out of the land through the bauxite into the aluminium …and I think they look nice …and I might do bronze later.’ Thanakupi

Right: The legends of Albatross Bay (detail) Cast aluminium 40

This is the legend of Albatross Bay – the two rivers, Mission and Hey River. I have drawn a memorial of the stories of Napranum – Weipa. Our stories are still in the land, still in the sea, in the air, in the day time and the night time. Thanakupi

One side of the sphere shows the Hey River. To the right are two kangaroos with the fire. There is also the Brolga with one egg. She was always jealous of Emu who lays more than one egg. You can also see Owl guarding the waterhole and the three birds: Sandpiper, Ibis and Egret. The basket represents the Hey Point story of the Weipa shell mounds. Turning the sphere to the right we are in different country and you can see Yarr the seagull man with the yams under his arms – female and male, also his canoe. Nearby is the Bandicoot who taught the animals to make baskets. On the other side of the sphere is the Mission River with its three inland waterholes. You can also see the bird of peace, the Emu protecting her eggs and chicks and towards the bottom, two of the fishermen: Seaslug and Stingray. Willy wagtail is shown who planted date palms and finished up at Weipa where they still grow today.

The legend of Albatross Bay Cast aluminium 350 x 290 mm 42

The big legends of my country are often about the birds:

Emu, Brolga, and many others. In this sphere you can see the foods as well, yams, yam seeds, small fruits, and others.

Emu and Brolga stories and the food plants of Albatross Bay, Western Cape York Cast aluminium 230 x 250 mm 44

We ate echidnas, we caught them for meat. I drew it

because we thought we should save them for later on. There won’t be food around because of the mine. We call them porcupine. Now you only accidentally come across one if you are lucky.

Porcupine Cast aluminium 210 x 150 mm 46

P l a t t e r s

Right: Kambel the crocodile and Pa’u the blue tongue lizard exchanging teeth (detail) Raku clay, mid range firing. Oxide under opaque glaze 315 x 300 mm 48

Front view

Ngwer the bandicoot collecting walam grass Base featuring Wamgan (grass basket) Raku clay, mid range firing. Oxide under opaque glaze 320 x 310 mm 50

Back view

Front view

Wacombe the bushman and Ndhwalan the dingo Base image features Ndhwalan the dingo Raku clay, mid range firing. Oxide under opaque glaze 330 x 320 mm 52

Back view

Wacombe, the bushman always carried his woomerah and

spear. Ndawalan the dingo was lost but then Wacombe heard his cry and found him. ‘You out of your country’ he said and pointed to Wandrapine, where he should go. So there he went but he was tired and as he drank water, he went to sleep at the waterhole. Ndawalan is inside that water today – and from that came the big beautiful swamp.

Front view

Man in canoe (Chivarri story of the shell mounds in Hey River) Buff stoneware clay, oxide decoration 317 x 295 mm 54

Back view

Chivarri the man paddles in his bark canoe along Hey River

looking for the mother and son. She sees him coming round the island and she runs quickly. The mother has been gathering food, shellfish, together with her child. As she ran away her string bag broke, or tore, and some of the shells fell out as she ran along. This made shell mounds. Front: As Chivarri paddles, the sun rays fall on the water – beautiful. Rear: The woman and her son are running and the shells fall. This is an important story of my mother’s country. 55

Front view

Kambel the crocodile and Pa’u the blue-tongue lizard exchanging teeth. Rear features tooth marks and waterline Raku clay, mid range firing. Oxide under opaque glaze 315 x 300 mm 56

Back view

Crocodile and Blue-tongue were brothers. But they fought

over the land and territory and food. So one day the brothers decided to settle things and exchange their teeth – Crocodile would have sharp teeth and Blue-tongue blunt. They wrestled, holding each other by the teeth until they came out and they swapped them. Crocodile now is in the sea and Blue-tongue on land.

Front view

Kwintangan qui (mullet spawning) Buff Raku, stoneware firing, oxide linear decoration, shino clear glaze finish 300 x 400 mm 58

Back view

Kwintangan the mother mullet swam up and down Mission River, or Nggwath Eran, looking for a place to lay her eggs. She came to Gonbung, or Napranum, and put them there on the rocks. When the little fish emerged she then swam beside them, up and down the rivers – Hey, Embley and Mission. She is the mother of our tribes.

Front view

Kwintangan lelenge (the mullet in the seaweed) Stoneware firing, oxide linear decoration, shino clear glaze finish 340 x 320 mm 60

Back view

Kwintangan swam up Mission River planting lelenge and came to the rocks at Gonbung where she laid her eggs. Afterwards she swam with hundreds of her babies, mother of the tribes, up and down the rivers. The seaweed was the food for her babies and the tribes.

Front view

Knoolu corroboree (mosquito men) Stoneware firing, oxide linear decoration, shino clear glaze finish 390 x 320 mm 62

Back view

The Mosquito tribe called everyone to the big gathering.

They called in the bush, stamping and humming, ‘mmmm, mmmm’. All the animals travelled to the corroboree ground and danced two by two, dancing all day and all night and all day and all night. Wacombe, the bushman hero, was running late so he made himself a bark canoe, the first, and paddled along the rivers and coast to get to the corroboree. That took place on Thaynakwith land and the evidence is there in the landscape. Rear: Underneath I have shown where the corroboree took place – it is now a big flattened area. That place has three shell mounds that commemorate the camps where the people had been eating, especially shellfish. When big tides came the shells were pushed all together to form the mounds.

Front view

Weipa story – willy wagtail Buff stoneware clay, oxide decoration 315 x 313 mm 64

Back view

Peetheree the willy wagtail traveled to Trunding planting date palms along the way, each time looking back to make sure they were growing in a straight line. At Trunding Creek he met Dugong, Emu and P’ra the frog. This was the place for setting boundaries of tribal land. From the time of that great meeting and corroboree, Dugong returned to the sea and Emu went to Beening area. The spirit of the bird Peetheree takes the form of a woman – you can see her floating in Trunding Creek. Underneath you can see the tribes dancing. In the centre are two figures and around them are the legendary animals: Crocodile and Blue-tongue, Corrup the kangaroo and Chinjarl the wallaby and the birds. Everyone is at the corroboree. 65

S e l e c t e d

B i o g r a p h y

Thancoupie (Thanakupi) b 1937, Weipa, North Queensland Language: Thaynakwith

Bouchat, Language poles.

‘Each year there is a subject for the children’s school holiday program and this year the children chose sculpture poles. Each pole is painted and put in a nice place representing Weipa, Napranum and Albatross Bay.’ Thanakupi 2008 66

Recognised as one of Australia’s leading ceramic artists, when Thancoupie began in the world of the visual arts she had to find her own way. In doing so she pioneered working in a medium new to Aboriginal art and often seen as nontraditional. Through her work, her teaching and her leadership roles she has been a major player in the development of contemporary Australian art. Thancoupie was born on the Weipa Mission in the late 1930s. Even as a teenager she was winning art awards. After setting up the first kindergarten at Napranum, her formal visual art training commenced in 1970 when she enrolled at the East Sydney Technical College (now the National Art School) in Sydney. Thancoupie was the first Indigenous Australian to carry out formal studies in the arts in Australia. Since that time Thancoupie has had many firsts and has filled important international roles as Australian Ambassador in the arts, held major exhibitions and participated in prestigious international art conferences, taking her visual art, her education knowledge and skills and her Aboriginal heritage to communities across the world. As a leader in the Napranum community, Thancoupie has been active in Aboriginal and Torres Strait reconciliation in Queensland, and has inspired numerous young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous artists over the years. Life Story in the ceramic arts In 1970, the young Gloria Fletcher visited East Sydney Technical College seeking a painting course. She had spent formative creative years painting with North Queensland artists including Dick Roughsey (Goobalathaldin) with whom she held her first exhibition of paintings in Cairns in 1968. She passed the pottery studio and entering its stone walls, became entranced. Clay at Weipa was sacred. ‘We only used it for ceremonial purposes and each colour had a meaning: red, black, yellow and white. The men used to keep the clay in a special storehouse and we kids were not allowed to touch it. We used it only for decoration, of our bodies and special spears and woomerahs, not to make things. We didn’t need pottery because we had shells to drink water and leaves to wrap and cook food in. The idea of having my hands in clay and working with it making art was somehow strange but exciting – it was only much later I realised that clay would be my art, and also my legend.’ Following completion of a three year certificate in ceramics, Thancoupie became the first Australian Aboriginal solo ceramic artist. She has been the foremost Aboriginal potter for 36 years. Through the use of clay she expressed herself and the intricate relationship she has with the land, all living things and with the elements: earth, fire and water. After a short period of making wheel thrown bottles, mugs and domestic bowls, Thancoupie wanted to express the old people’s stories from Weipa where she had grown up in the dormitory system run by the Presbyterian Mission. She began publicly using her totemic name of Thancoupie or Thanakupi (wattle flower) in 1972. Essentially a ceramic sculptor, both her forms and surface images are symbolic. Egg shapes suggesting emus’ eggs are fertility symbols, spheres are the earth and the cycle of life. Seaforms and free form shapes suggest rocks and rock holes. Clay surfaces are covered with linear designs, the surface glazes changing over the years from highly glazed stoneware, using tenmoku, celadon and dry feldspathic effects to the work of the last two decades - chalk-like with dark linear drawings of kangaroos, possums, emus, dugong, barramundi, ibis and other characters and figures who created the land around Weipa, and the coastal areas of Cape York. Other themes are plants and seafoods, seaweeds, vines and tendrils, the form of some recent work suggest yams and seed pods. Thancoupie has held 20 solo exhibitions and numerous combined exhibitions throughout Australia and abroad. Her works are in all major collections. She exhibited throughout the 1980s and 90s in both Sydney and Melbourne with additional exhibitions in Adelaide, Cairns, Townsville and other cities. Highlights of her career include her appointment in 1986 as Australian Cultural Commissioner to the Biennale of Sao Paulo and her solo exhibitions which toured throughout South America and to Houston, USA She has designed fabrics, murals and terrazzo works for public institutions. Thancoupie is regarded as the first, and still premier, contemporary artist of North Queensland. The distinctive linear forms she has developed have inspired a recognisable regional style of Indigenous art. Thancoupie founded the Weipa Festival and has run the Holiday Program in Weipa since 1988 with other family members, teaching bush knowledge and art and craft skills to the children of Weipa. She is a mentor for young North Queensland artists but continues the pressing work of family support and reconciliation. In 1998 she was appointed Doctor of Griffith University for her achievements and services to Aboriginal Arts, and in 2001 she was honoured with a retrospective survey exhibition by the Brisbane City Gallery. Awarded an AO in 2004 and an Honorary Doctorate by James Cook University in 2005, Thancoupie is now the highest decorated Indigenous artist in Australia. In February 2007 the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts awarded Thancoupie its Visual Artist Emeritus Award. Thancoupie has also recently completed a cultural and language dictionary for the Thaynakwith people to ensure her language and customs are retained for the future. Jennifer Isaacs 67

Exhibitions 1972 1973 1974 1975 1977 1977 1978 1980 1980 1980 1981 1981 1984 1984 1986 1986 1986 1987 1987 1987 1987 1988 1988 1988 1988 1988 1989 1989 1989 68

Solo exhibition, Volta, Alexandra Lane, Sydney Solo exhibition, Llewellyn Galleries, Adelaide Solo exhibition, Divola Gallery, Balmain Solo exhibition, Volta, Alexandra Lane, Sydney Solo exhibition, Heritage Gallery, Cairns Solo exhibition, Collectors Gallery, Sydney Solo exhibition, Realities Gallery, Melbourne Solo exhibition, Marshall Gallery, Cairns Group exhibition, Cooks Hill Gallery, Newcastle (with paintings by Dick Roughsey and Percy Trezise) Group exhibition, Wagner Galleries, Sydney (with paintings by Dick Roughsey and Percy Trezise) Solo exhibition, Townsville Gallery Group exhibition, Upstairs Gallery, Cairns (with potter Peter Thompson) Group exhibition, Seasons Gallery, North Sydney (with other Aboriginal women artists) Group exhibition, Opening of Cultural Centre, Weipa (pottery exhibition and community arts of Weipa women) Solo exhibition, sponsored by the Australian Department of ˜ Paulo Foreign Affairs and Aboriginal Arts Board in Sao and regional provinces; Mexico City and regional provinces; Houston, USA Group exhibition, Hilton Hotel, Cairns Artist in residence, Trinity Beach Primary School, Cairns Solo exhibition, Gold Coast Regional Gallery, Southport Design commission for terrazzo floor for Harbourside Marketplace, Sydney Guest artist, Benalla Sculptural Garden, Victoria Design of pottery with La Paloma, Sydney for Harbourside Marketplace Solo exhibition, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney 20 x 20 Crafts, Travelling Exhibition from Crafts Council of NSW Bicentennial Exhibition travelling around Australia Capricorn Galleries, Cairns, exhibition with Raymond Arone Meeks Aboriginal People, Randwick Historical Society Group exhibition, Aboriginal Artists Gallery, Sydney Artist in Residence, Amata, South Australia Shades of Ochre Gallery, Darwin

1991 1991 1992 1994 1994 1994 1995 1996 1998 2001 2001 2001 2003 2004 2006 2006 2006 2008 2008 2008

Guest artist, Hermannsburg Aboriginal Pottery Hogarth Galleries, Sydney Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne Manly Art Gallery, Sydney Hogarth Galleries, Sydney Chapman Galleries, Canberra Delinquent Angels, Faenza Italy and Australian tour Chapman Gallery, Canberra Tandanya, Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Adelaide Survey Retrospective Exhibition, Brisbane City Gallery and Cairns Regional Gallery Aboriginal & Pacific Art Gallery, Sydney William Mora Galleries, Melbourne Story Place, Queensland Art Gallery/Cairns Regional Gallery Bush Pioneers, with Ray Crooke, Percy Trezise, Dick Roughsey, Cairns Regional Gallery Thanakupi: A Gatherer’s View, Craft Queensland Lilla Watson & Thanakupi, Marlene Antico Fine Arts, Sydney Thancoupie, William Mora Gallery, Melbourne The Sunshine State, Campbelltown Regional Gallery, New South Wales Ceramic Stories, Dubbo Regional Gallery, New South Wales National Indigenous Ceramic Art Award - Exhibition, Shepparton Regional Gallery

Collections

Selected Bibliography

Australian National Gallery, Canberra National Museum of Australia Museum of Victoria National Gallery of Victoria Art Gallery of NSW The Australian Museum Cairns Regional Gallery Shepparton Art Gallery Gold Coast Regional Gallery Queensland Art Gallery Queensland Museum Powerhouse Museum Art Gallery of South Australia Holmes a Court Collection Comalco Ltd Brisbane Airport

Thancoupie 2001 Exhibition Catalogue, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane Cochrane G., 1992 History of the Australian Crafts Movement, NSW University Press Kensington Thanakupi: A Gatherer’s View, 2006 Exhibition Catalogue, Craft Queensland, Brisbane Isaacs J., 1982 Thancoupie the Potter, Aboriginal Artists Agency, Sydney Iannou N., 1987 Australian Crafts, Meat Market Craft Centre, North Melbourne Story Place: Indigenous art of Cape York and the rainforest, 2003 Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

Jennifer Isaacs 69

Notes