Thancoupie:
Thancoupie was born in Gloria James near Napranum, Weipa on the
western coast of Cape York Peninsula, Far North Queensland.
Thancoupie grew up in the small Napranum community and attended
the mission school there before studying ceramics in Sydney. She
drew directly from her knowledge of Thainakuith culture, as well as
ceramic and metal art practices, to produce her body of work. By
combining naturalistic ceramic shapes with etched surface
decoration Thancoupie created pots of great beauty, and in the
process, she became regarded as one of Australia's greatest artists.
Her work is in most Australian public collections and remains a
central figure in Australian art history. From 1976 until 1983 she
travelled internationally as a representative of the World Crafts
Council, promoting the importance of pottery in the process of
Aboriginal Australian cultural renewal.
Thancoupie works in
pottery, creating artifacts
such as spheres and pots.
She used sacred clay to
create pottery sculptures.
Her sculptures consist of evened-out vases, balls, plates
and eggs. She has developed a personal style that
reflects a personal and cultural connection to the land and
its creatures. She uses simple shapes, yet holds a lot of
meaning. The shapes she used are mainly simple organic
shapes such as circles and round shapes in all her
sculptures, she also created some of her works using
geometric drawings such as stick figures and triangles.
The symbols she used in her sculptures include land and
sea animals and people. She purposely chose not to
colour her artworks, focusing on the shapes that are
carved.
Thancoupie's work is considered a cultural artifact
because she uses sculpture to trace and frame the
various stories and frames of her life and nature that trace
back to and relate to her culture, therefore expressing herself and her culture.
Thancoupie specializes in carving shapes into her work. Carving gives off a simple texture and it's
easier to colour in later. Her usage of simple shapes and telling her stories through these shapes
and the other elements she uses inspired me to do so in my vase. Instead of going with realistic
shapes and objects, I would break down the shape and use simpler shapes or add cultural symbols
that represent my chosen culture or issue.
Matsuda Yuriko:
Yuriko was born in 1943, in a city in Hyogo Prefecture called Ashiya, Japan. She received her
B.A graduate degree in ceramics at Kyoto City University of Arts. Her work shares elements
with Dadaism, Man Ray and Elsa Schiaparelli. Matsuda’s artworks are being displayed in the
Brooklyn Museum, The Yale Art Gallery, the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of
Kansas, and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
Matsuda's works often focus on hand-assembled female body parts, painted in bright colours.
Her creations include ceramic feet, banana-tipped teapots, irregular bowls decorated with
eggplants, pepper moulds, rollers and her skates, all handmade and colourfully painted. They
are often decorated with red enamel and gold brocade, in the style of Imari porcelain exports.
Matsuda's work subverts the traditional Japanese use of coloured glazes and gold patterns. Her
work is not designed for strict functionality, rather, they deviate from witty cultural commentary
on self-expression.
Her style could be described as irregular and playful, kind of childish, like something that
children might create due to the messiness and the use of bright colours. She uses the shape of
the object and the painting on them to express her message. Her artwork takes more of a
rounder shape even if there's a sharper object she makes the edges rounder and considering
that a lot of her works are female body parts so roundness makes the object have a more
feminine feel. She varies within her design, sometimes going with very simple colour-blocking
drawings or could go for detailed intricate designs. She adds 3D objects poking out of the
sculpture like the trees and the eggplant. She adds elements from her culture like blossom trees
and cultural designs.
Her works are considered cultural
artifacts because she expresses herself,
her thoughts and her culture through an
art form. She decorates her forms with
patterns and colours that reference
traditional Chinese and Japanese
porcelain.
I was impressed with her choice to use bright colours and objects in her vase. I was also
inspired by the use of random objects on top of her sculptures. The techniques she uses are
almost child-like ideas, interpreted in her work like the messiness of the placement of objects
and bright colours. That inspired me to use 3D objects to stick on my vase and use a variety of
colour pallets.
