Thancoupie

Dr Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher James (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.

Thancoupie also produced a number of works using metal, including her large-scale cast bronze work Eran (2010) which is displayed at the entrance to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Thancoupie’s works in metal closely resemble her ceramic works: rounded vessels or spheres, into which imagery from Thainakuith culture is carved. Thancoupie’s use of metal in her practice was, like ceramics, among the first uses of the material as a vehicle for cultural expression in a First Nations context.

Thancoupie drew directly from her knowledge of Thainakuith culture, as well as ceramic and metal art practices, to produce her body of work. Thancoupie’s works occupy most Australian public collections and remains a pivotal figure in Australian art history.

Early life Thancoupie was born in 1937 at Weipa to Ida and Jimmy James and was given the name Thanakupi which means "wattle flower" in the Thaynakwith language. She was later given the name Gloria James at her baptism. Gravestone of Private Jimmy James located at Thursday Island Cemetery. In 1945, Thancoupie’s father died while stationed on Thursday Island as a World War Two serviceman.

Thancoupie grew up in the small Napranum community and attended the mission school there before studying ceramics in Sydney.

Career Thancoupie worked as a ceramic artist, story teller, educator, community leader, advocate, and negotiator. In 1969 she moved from far north Queensland to study art and ceramics at East Sydney Technical College.

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 together with the Tiwi potter Eddy Puruntatamerri, were founders of Australia’s Indigenous ceramic art movement. Thancoupie's work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia as well as art galleries and museums in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Queensland. Thancoupie mounted more than 20 solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas. She began telling her community's stories through clay, tile and other ceramic arts.

Works

Awards 1998 honorary doctorate from the University of Queensland 2003 Order of Australia — Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) As: Fletcher-James, Thanacoupie Gloria

Personal life Thancoupie died in 2011 after a long illness, aged 74, at Weipa Base Hospital on Cape York.