The artistic pair will be in attendance from 2pm for the afternoon.

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The ceramics of Nambucca Heads artist Michaela Kloeckner and a collection of paintings by Kim Satchell (PhD) form a collaborative project that addresses a passion for beachcombing, creative practice and the crisis of ecology.

Living at opposite ends of the Coffs Coast they initiate a conversation attuned to the rhythms alongshore and the ocean.

“I have been fortunate to have been closely connected to the earth, namely clay, for over 40 years,” Michaela told News Of The Area.

“The natural beauty and wilderness of Nambucca’s surrounding beaches and landscape provides daily inspiration to me.

“Found objects by inadvertent beachcombing – sponges, pebbles and shells – fuse with ceramic vessels.

“Sponges are soaked in liquid clay slip and when firm are used to create wondrous forms connected by hand using coils of various clays/white porcelaneous stoneware and rough Raku Trachyte clay.”

The sponges burn away in the firing, leaving a perfect replica in clay.

Pebbles may too melt in the firing, leaving glaze-like traces.

Some pieces may receive a final adornment with a mosaic-like finish using shells, glass and other washed-up debris/treasure.

“The process is experimental and the outcome often surprising and never to be repeated,” she said.

The colours of the beach, the ocean, the sky are reflected in the glazing – ocean green celadons, sky-like turquoise, pink and lavender matte finishes, sandy brown beach-like semi-matte glaze.

Michaela can be found taking inspiration at favourite local haunts Valla South, Scotts Head and the V-Wall in Nambucca Heads.

Michaela’s studio is underneath her pole house home in Nambucca Heads, adjacent to the Nambucca Forest Reserve, just a fifteen-minute walk to Swimming Creek Beach.

“Nambucca wild clay found behind my house has made its debut in the latest series of works shown for the first time in Aquatic Illuminations,” she said.

The other artist featured in the exhibition, Kim Satchell resides in Emerald Beach and has extensive experience in adult education and community work.

As a life-long surfer his pursuits are steeped in the local vernacular and an intimate relationship with the
immediate surrounds.

In Satchell’s artist statement he writes, “The ephemeral dynamism of water and light particularly in the liminal zone of the shoreline figures in the aquatic illuminations the works exhibit.

“A deft poetry of form and fractality produces affective notations in a mediative aesthetics.”

Satchell’s ecological sensibilities stem from the sensuous geographies of everyday life taken up in moments of rendered epiphany and self-realisation, he says.

In curating Aquatic Illuminations, Satchell’s delicate and sensuous watercolour paintings inspired immediate and unprecedented responses reflected in Kloeckner’s new ceramic work.

Michaela describes the collection of works on show as making for an “unusual, thought provoking and memorable exhibition…and definitely worth a visit”.

The artists say this exhibition is of particular interest to interior designers, collectors, creatives and local businesses who value building the cultural capital of creative work steeped in a unique sense and experience of place.

Aquatic Illuminations opens at Nexus Community Gallery in The Old Butter Factory in Bellingen on Sunday 14 January running until Friday 9 February 2024.

By Andrea FERRARI