christine thacker

Milford Galleries Dunedin18 Dowling Street (03) 477 7727 [email protected]

5th - 30th March, 2011

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

Christine ThackerOn Location

1. CHRISTINE THACKER, Jug No. 1 (2011)

glazed earthenware ceramic, size (v x h x d): 380 x 167 x 130 mm

2. CHRISTINE THACKER, Jug No. 2 - Hotel Aotearoa (2010)


4. CHRISTINE THACKER, Jug No. 4 - Hotel Aotearoa II (2011)


7. CHRISTINE THACKER, Jug No. 7 - Hotel Aotearoa III (2011)


11. CHRISTINE THACKER, Jug No. 11 - The Source (2011)


13. CHRISTINE THACKER, Zentropa (2011), glazed earthenware ceramic, size (v x ø): 390 x 180 mm

INSTALLATION VIEW CHRISTINE THACKER, Sea Tiles

CHRISTINE THACKER, Sea Tiles

14. CHRISTINE THACKER, Sea Tile No. 4 (2011) glazed earthenware ceramic, size

15. CHRISTINE THACKER, Sea Tile No. 16 (2011)






29. CHRISTINE THACKER, Sea Tile No. 3 - Sea of Trees (2011)




Christine Thacker is an important ceramist with an international reputation. Her works are unmistakable, distinctive and the maker’s presence is imbued in every object. Her works use metaphor and symbol, revealing a superb sense of form. Thacker builds through a process of painterly application narratives that traverse cultural dynamics peculiar to NZ (e.g. “Hotel Aotearoa I, II & III”), the experience of journeying countless times between the islands of the Hauraki Gulf (the Sea Tiles) and which also explore the object’s surface, volume and mass. ‘On Location’ has two constituent parts. Thacker’s quintessential jug is a celebration of that most utilitarian object. She is attuned to all of its references and history of use, but the subject matter developed is contemporary and urban, industrialised and landscaped. This use of the surface as a canvas, the development of specific locations and the application of a narrative purpose is developed in the round. In this way, each jug becomes a reinvention of itself – it is no longer just a metaphoric symbol, it is now about living, participating and being. The image of water is used as a medium of transference, linking the city and the landscape across many of the painted jugs. Two jugs have strands of hair falling from the rim. On two others, an interlocking pattern (like fish scales) covers the crème coloured surface as if a skin. The second group of works, the Sea Tiles, directly addresses the sensation of being at sea. The horizon line established is a key device in this, as is the depiction of the sea as a moving, living, altering, physical thing. Thacker takes the viewer out on to it, using the windowing of two shapes - circular (like the portholes of a ship) and elliptical (like that of an eye) to do this. The subject is the sea itself – patterns emerge, rhythms presented, prevailing wave direction stated; notions of threat rise and fall. Thacker explores the fugitive characteristics of the sea – its colour and energy. Scale is developed with islands shown on the horizon, and the foreground of the sea being visually dominant.

E X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S T

1- 12 Jugs 1 - 12 (2011) 850 each

13 Zentropa (2011) 950

14 - 30 Sea Tiles 1 - 17 (2011) 450 – 700 each

All prices are NZD and include GST; Prices are current at the time of the exhibition

Christine Thacker 2011 CV Milford Galleries Dunedin www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

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CHRISTINE THACKER b. 1953, lives Waiheke Island

Jug (Green Trees Water) (2009)

Christine Thacker is an established ceramicist with an international reputation for innovative form and

approach to the medium

“The fact that Thacker’s work claims an intellectual approach and has extraordinary tactile qualities is

supported by decades of experience with the material and her sovereign way of handling it. The fact

that she again and again accepts new challenges is proof of her artistic power.”1

Thacker’s work has a superb sense of form, mass and volume, and her painterly application possesses a

subtle beauty. Her forms are often embellished with small medieval icons, runes and symbols that

provide a sense of history.

There is an awareness of process in Thacker’s works. Her thick chunky forms are hand-built, roughly hewn

using slab and coil techniques. The surface is then painted in an assortment of ceramic pigments and

oxides before a glaze is applied.

“Organic growth has been an enduring theme in Thacker’s work…Her approach has always been to

start from process. She coils her forms intuitively, not with any image or issue foremost, relying on the

relationship between her hands and the material.” 2

Christine Thacker was born in New Plymouth, 1953 and currently lives on Waiheke Island. A practicing

ceramicist since 1974, Thacker was employed at Cambridgeshire Pottery, Cambridge, England in 1978,

and in 1980 established her own studio in Westmere, Auckland. In 1992 she took up residency at the

International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemet, Hungary and since then, has gained a significant reputation

exhibiting throughout New Zealand, Australia, Japan, England, Germany and Hungary. As an

established practitioner, Thacker is regularly invited to present workshops and act as a selector for

competitions in Australia and New Zealand. She has received numerous awards, grants and residencies,

including the Fletcher Challenge Award, Premier Award NZ Ceramics and Glass XPO. Her work is held in

numerous private, corporate and public collections such as the Auckland Museum, Otago Museum,

Waikato Polytechnic, Fletcher Challenge Collection, Dowse Museum, International Ceramics Studio,

Hungary.

1. Moira Elliott, “Silent Observation”, Ceramics Magazine Europe, 2000, p.37

2. Helen Schamroth, 100 New Zealand Craft Artists, 1998, p. 84


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CHRISTINE THACKER b. 1953, lives Waiheke Island

EDUCATION

Spotswood College, New Plymouth

Palmerston North Teachers College

Massey University

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2011 On Location, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2008 The Jug, the Sea and the Tree, Avid Gallery, Wellington

2007 Glossy Pitchers, Milford Gallery, Dunedin

2005 Jugs and Jars, Avid Gallery Wellington.

2003 Illustrated Clay, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland

2002 Pottery for the Modern Home, Avid Gallery, Wellington

Pottery in Still Life, Green Gallery, Waiheke Island, Auckland

2001 Clay + Geometry, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland

1997 Five Year Review, Out of the Blue Gallery, Kingsland Auckland

1996 Solid Pottery, Ponsonby Pots, Auckland

1992 Crowds/Form, Dowse Museum, Lower Hutt

1991 Ceramics, Lopdell Gallery, Auckland.

1990 Dark Trees and Quizzing Figures, Bowen Galleries, Wellington

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2008 Place, Piece Gallery, Matakana

Natural Selection, Waiheke Art Gallery, Waiheke Island

Collectors' Show: from the collection of Jackie and Graham Guthrie, Masterworks

Gallery, Auckland

2007 Malcolm Harrison tribute exhibition, Compendium Gallery, Auckland

2006 Overlap, with Elizabeth McClure and Pauline Bern, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland.

Beyond the Pale, curated by Campbell Hegan, Northart Gallery, Northcote, Auckland.

2005 Minus Reason, collaborative ceramic work in Malcolm Harrison's exhibition, Objectspace,

Auckland

Homework, mixed media group exhibition, Avid Gallery, Wellington.

2003 Domestic Scale, The Stitchbury Group Collection of 3-dimensional works, Fisher Gallery,

Pakuranga, Auckland.

Image and Object, still-life in New Zealand, Pataka, Art Gallery and Museum, Porirua,

Wellington

2002 Space, Form and Fire, Gallery East, Perth, Western Australia.

Space, Form and Fire, Ceramic Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia

Space, Form and Fire, Shepparton Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia

2000 Auckland Studio Potters Annual Exhibition

Truth to Materials, Millennium Gallery, Blenheim

Women's Refuge Benefit exhibition, Outdoor sculpture, Becroft Garden, Auckland

1999 Hot Offerings, curated by Helen Schamroth, Uxbridge Gallery, Auckland

Delegates' Exhibition, 9th National Ceramics Conference, Western Australian School of

Art, Design and Media, Perth, Western Australia

Ceramic Sculpture, with Richard Parker, Compendium Gallery, Auckland.

1998 Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Award Exhibition, Auckland Museum

1997 Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Award Exhibition, Auckland Museum

Nealie and Friends, Gallery 16, Huapai, West Auckland

1996 On Form, curated group exhibition, Lopdell Gallery, Auckland

Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Award Exhibition, Auckland Museum

Panoply, an exhibition of Dowse acquisitions since 1992, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt

1995 Potters and Architects Collaborate, Fisher Gallery, Pakuranga, NZ.

Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Award Exhibition, Auckland Museum, NZ.

1993 Three New Zealand Women, Akasaka Green Gallery, Tokyo and Takichi Gallery, Kyoto,


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Japan.

Cervena Culinary Art, Judith Anderson Gallery (with Cervena Co. Exhibition on NZ art

and objects travelling to European centers to promote NZ cuisine)

1992 Devonport Arts Festival, Compendium Gallery, Devonport.

NZ Society of Potters, annual selected exhibition, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland

1991 Creative Clay, Crafts Council Gallery, Wellington

Waikato Society of Potters, The Emporium, Hamilton

1990 Heritage Week 1990 celebration group show, Lopdell Gallery, Auckland

United! Suter/ National selected exhibition, Suter Gallery, Nelson

1988 First National Ceramics Symposium, Otago Polytechnic Ceramics School

AWARDS & RESIDENCIES

2004 Merit Award, Waiheke Ceramics Award

1996 Award of Merit, Fletcher Challenge Award, Auckland Museum

1995 Premier Award NZ Ceramics and Glass XPO, Auckland

Church Bay Estate Award, Waiheke Island Art Awards

Judge's Commendation, Fletcher Challenge Award, Auckland Museum

1992 NZ Arts Council, Major Study Grant

Award of Merit, Fletcher Challenge Annual Award, Auckland Museum

5-week residency at International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemet, Hungary

1978 Employment at Cambridgeshire Pottery, Cambridge, England

COLLECTIONS

Auckland Museum

Auckland Studio Potters

Otago Museum

Waikato Polytechnic, Hamilton

Fletcher Challenge Collection, Auckland, NZ

Dowse Museum, Lower Hutt, NZ

International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemet, Hungary

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2000 Moira Elliott, ‘Silent Observation’, Ceramics Magazine, Europe, 2000

1998 Shamroth, Helen, 100 New Zealand Craft Artists, Godwit, Auckland, 1998

1997 King, Leo, ‘Christine Thacker: A Search for Harmony’, Ceramics: Art and Perception,

No.28, 1997

Sea Tile No 14 (2011)

christine thacker

Documents

size v x h x d

sea tileschristine thacker

hotel aotearoa

sea tiles14

thackeron location1