Júlia Côta

Born 1935 in Barcelos, Portugal

Lives and works in Barcelos, Portugal

Diaba (she Devil), 2023

Diaba (she Devil), 2024

ceramic

Courtesy the artist

Prazeres Côta

Born in 1962 Barcelos, Portugal

Lives and works in Barcelos, Portugal

Devil, 2023

Devil, 2023

ceramic

Courtesy the artist

UNSW Galleries

Behind the ancient stone buildings, across the river and past the city gardens of Barcelos, Portugal, a narrow street is named for Júlia Côta, the 89-year-old ceramic artist who has lived and worked there since she was nine.

The granddaughter of João Domingos Côta da Rocha, known as the father of the Galo de Barcelos (Rooster of Barcelos), Côta is herself considered one of the greatest living practitioners of traditional Portuguese clay art (Figurado de Barcelos). Côta’s dolls, as she calls them, collapse male, female and animal forms to create vibrant mythological creatures familiar from popular and folk Portuguese culture, with its roots in pre-Christian Europe.

In Côta’s imagining, Diablo (the Devil) is effeminate and shapely, adorned with the glimmering ornaments distinct to the Minho region of Portugal. On their undersides, the artist has signed her initials, two letters shown to her by a collector as, like many women of her generation, Côta was not taught to read or write. Despite this, over seven decades of artmaking, she has created entire worlds wherein the boundaries between myth and culture as well as genders blur.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.