By Day, By Night – the Never Never, 2024

The tactile nature of clay enables a direct connection with the earth. My slab vessels often mirror similar shapes of the land and geology around Gumbaynggirr Country. They are inspired by, and reflective of my landscape paintings. Over the years I’ve experimented with both earthenware and stoneware using at different times a rustic Shino glaze, a basic slip, or colourful underglazes. More recently, I’m attracted to the simplicity of using a basic black underglaze. The sgraffito process mirrors my carving practice in painting, though in this instance it reveals the body of the white clay. The use of a black and white colour scheme references the effects of positive and negative space; shadow and light; and the historical nature of what has passed. In other instances, it also mirrors the charred effects from the bushfires. These pots have a unique presence, as whilst the vessels appear 2-dimensional front on, the landscape imagery coils and intertwines around the vessel, creating an ongoing narrative of the land, that takes the viewer on a cultural heritage journey, that can be viewed at any angle. The audience can decide which way is front and back, or reverse. Whilst they have a sculptural quality, they either have a clear glaze fired on the inside, or in this instance the high firing of the stoneware makes it vitrified. This vitrification process also makes them fully functional as a vase.

Coco Elder is an Australian artist specialising in painting and ceramics with a degree in both Fine Arts and Art Education, from UNSWCofa. Her early childhood experiences of weekends spent with her family in the Blue Mountains, making miniature gardens & collecting clay from the side of the road to make pots fired in the open fireplace, put her in touch with mother earth and helped her to resonate and connect with nature. Elder’s experience of studying Landscape Architecture sparked her interest in botany & geology and opened her perception to the delicacy of various microclimates and how this affects the lie of the land.

Alongside her Visual Arts high school teaching qualifications, Coco has also been a Lecturer at the College of Fine Arts (COFA) at UNSW and studied Ceramics for a number of years with award winning Ceramicist Barbara Campbell-Allen (OAM).

She now resides in Raleigh, in the Bellingen Shire where she works from her studio at home and takes her inspiration from the creeks and landscapes from Gumbaynggirr Country’s Bellinger Valley and surrounds.

“I hope to lead my audience on a journey and have them reflect on the grandeur of our natural landscape. One that is to be revered and protected”.

Coco Elder has exhibited throughout numerous galleries including Art2Muse, Rochfort Gallery, Charles Hewitt, Dickerson Gallery, Avalon Art Gallery, Palm Beach Art Gallery, Tree-O Gallery, and Dorrigo Rainforest Exhibition Centre.
Elder has been a finalist in numerous awards including the, The Environmental Art and Design Prize, the National Emerging Art Prize, the Lethbridge Landscape Art Prize, Paddington Art Prize & Mosman Art Prize. She was a prize winner at the Sydney Royal Agricultural Easter Show, and the E.J Mantova Art Prize. Coco was commissioned by Hornsby Hospital to produce a large body of work for one of the new wings during their 2022-2023 renovation.