Thancoupie

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

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 Australian 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 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. Eran 2010, a sculptural piece is at the entrance to the National Gallery of Australia. Thancoupie mounted more than 20 solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas.

In 1976, after completing her Fine Arts degree in Sydney, Thancoupie relocated to Cairns and established a pottery studio there. From 1976 to 1983 Thancoupie travelled internationally as a representative to the World Crafts Council, advocating the importance of ceramics in the process of cultural regeneration for First Nations Australians. In 1986 Thancoupie became the Australian Cultural Commissioner to the Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil.

Thancoupie began her career as a preschool children's educator while pursuing her art part-time. In 1969 she moved from far north Queensland to study art and ceramics at East Sydney Technical College.

Thancoupie emerged in the art world as a painter, holding her first exhibition in Cairns in 1968. Her painted works were shown alongside Dick Roughsy’s Mornington Island bark paintings. Thancoupie grew up using clay in a ceremonial context, and this direct contact with Country and ancestry inspired her training as a ceramicist in Sydney. Thancoupie held her first ceramics exhibition in Volta and became closely associated with Aboriginal communities and activist groups in Sydney, as well as a prominent member of the arts and crafts community.

In 1957 bauxite mining began in Western Cape York and as a result, Thainakuith land became occupied by non-Indigenous people and culture. Gradually Thainakuith land became increasingly subject to bauxite mining and forced the dislocation of a large portion of the community there, causing the significant loss of local cultural knowledge. Thancoupie’s body of work would become a response to this decision by the Queensland government to encroach upon Thainakuith land, and Thancoupie would also go on to participate in broader political Land Rights protests.

In 1945, Thancoupie’s father died while stationed on Thursday Island as a World War Two serviceman.

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 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. She had a twin sister who died young.