Nirvana: A Pilgrimage

Paula Jenkins & Sasha Jury Radford

Nirvana celebrates the pilgrimage of Tamworth ceramicist Sasha Jury Radford, and Walcha painter Paula Jenkins. Their two creative disciplines, painting and ceramics, meld beautifully in this must-see exhibition about travelling journeys. Their works intertwine to create a visual narrative of landscape, halting time and revealing the significance of place and presence.

Sasha’s ceramic sculptures, totems and suspended works are inspired by her pilgrimage of walking the Camino de Compostela. Following these ancient paths in Spain, she has found herself drawn towards the worn stone paths, ruins of medieval villages, stunning landscapes and the appreciation and significance of endurance.

At the heart of Sasha’s works lies the stone carried - a small weighty symbol of the burdens, lost loves, memories, traumas and purpose of walking the Camino. Along the paths there are many beautifully shaped stones placed by past pilgrims or just worn by the many footsteps of individuals. Sasha uses a variety of clays and purposely leaves the clay raw, and tactile. She loves the solitude of walking, and the time to think. Her sculptures are reflections and meditations of release, and the quiet resilience found in every step along The Way.

Paula presents 32 paintings and a poem in this exhibition, marking her most extensive body of work to date. Developed over the past 12 months, the works draw inspiration from her time hiking through the alpine environments of New Zealand’s South Island during winter last year. The vivid memories of crisp air, quiet expanses, glacial streams, turquoise ice, and the commanding presence of snow-capped mountains lingered long after her return home. To Paula, this landscape is Nirvana—a place of profound peace and harmony. Through this exhibition, she translates her connection to place through colour and marks, using colour as a bridge between self and landscape.