Look, if you’re gifting another box of biscuits or chocolate this year, that’s between you and your conscience. But if you want to give something that doesn’t taste like regret… come look at these plates. They’re handmade, beautiful, a little bit show-offy (in a good way), and absolutely guaranteed to make you seem like you have your life together.
A Feast for the Eyes: The Outrageously Ornate ‘Plates’ Exhibition
Opening Night: Friday 5 December, 5:00 to 7:30 p.m.
At Black Fig Gallery, Alstonville
This December, Black Fig Gallery closes out the year with a celebration of craft, beauty, and abundance. A Feast for the Eyes brings together earthy ceramics, ornate creations, and hand-stitched detail in a show that blurs the line between function and art.
Featuring works by Steph Miriklis, Danielle Lovatt, Tallulah Brown & Tim Fry, this exhibition explores the joy of making and the artistry of the everyday - from clay and thread to decoration and ritual.
The work is presented on a handbuilt Japanese-inspired black long table and benches, crafted locally by Valley of Craftsmen’s Lawrence Clain and will be available for purchase. The show also includes locally embroidered napkins, textile table furnishings, and a curated selection of seasonal handmade ornaments and small gift pieces. Every item - including the decorations on the tree - are crafted by Northern Rivers makers and available for purchase throughout December.
Steph Miriklis
Ceramic Artist
Steph Miriklis is a Northern Rivers artist whose practice began in painting and printmaking at Southern Cross University. Her work now centres on hand-formed ceramic sculpture and large-scale mosaics influenced by her Greek and Latvian heritage.
For A Feast for the Eyes, Steph applies her distinctive style to a new series of ceramic plates. Layered glazes and ornate detailing form symbolic characters and creatures reminiscent of ancient stories.
This body of work responds to the 2022 Lismore floods, exploring how loss reshapes us and how the objects in our homes hold both stability and fragility. Embellished with memory and protection, these works sit between functional items and sacred witnesses to the personal impacts of climate change.
Danielle Lovatt
Ceramic Artist
Danielle Lovatt is an Artist who recently transitioned from a long career as a Secondary School Visual Arts teacher to pursue her practice full time. Based in Lismore on Bundjalung Country, she works primarily across painting and ceramics.
Drawing on symbolism, subjective colour and decorative patterns inspired by travel and the exotic, Danielle blends real and imagined worlds into intimate scenes that celebrate the so-called ordinary. Her handbuilt, brightly coloured ceramic forms are full of painted whimsy, echoing historical ceramic traditions and the playful meeting of the oriental and the occidental.
Danielle is represented by several Australian galleries, exhibits regularly, and has work held in private collections both nationally and internationally.
Tim Fry
Ceramic Artist
Tim Fry was born in Sydney in 1985 and now lives and works in the Northern Rivers. He holds a Bachelor of Visual Art from Southern Cross University (2015) and a Diploma of Visual Art from Southbank TAFE (2009). Exhibiting since 2008, Tim has shown widely across Australia, including a 2025 solo exhibition at Lismore Regional Gallery, the Sydney and Melbourne Affordable Art Fairs (2023), and solo and group exhibitions in Brisbane and Byron Bay.
Tim teaches ceramics and visual art at TAFE and creates public artworks, including murals for Lismore’s Back Alley Gallery and sculptures for Wollongbar District Park. His practice blends ceramics, pop art, street art and outsider influences, using text, lyrics and accessible imagery to explore identity, place, politics, mental health, climate change, parenthood and nostalgia.
Tallulah Brown
Textile Artist
Tallulah Brown fell in love with embroidery as a child, watching her mother work through the kits she collected. Embroidery — one of the oldest art forms, used by Paleolithic people for ornamentation and cultural identity — remains at the centre of her practice. Though she works with digital tools, every stitch is still placed individually, a slow process that fuels her desire to “embroider every living thing.”
Tallulah’s work explores the relationships between humans, plants and animals, and the movement of species across continents, with a particular focus on Australia’s unique role in global biodiversity. Alongside wall-based works, she creates elaborately embroidered linen table pieces that playfully question the line between art and craft: “If you can wipe your mouth with it, is it art?”
Also check out other Arts events in Alstonville, Exhibitions in Alstonville, Fine Arts events in Alstonville.
