Once a year, the Northern Rivers Community Gallery turns part of its exhibition space over to the group of local artists who helped make the gallery a reality.

The 15th Annual Grace Cruice Memorial Exhibition is now on show, bringing together works from established professional artists alongside people who simply love creating art and craft — and may rarely have the opportunity to see their work hanging in a professional gallery.

Among them this year is Kim Michelle Toft, a full-time artist for 38 years whose work is already displayed on a scale few Ballina artists could match.

Her marine artwork covers a huge exterior wall of the Ramada Hotel building, making it arguably one of the most recognisable pieces of public art in Ballina.

Yet Toft, who has been a member of Ballina Arts & Crafts Centre Incorporated (BACCI) for about a decade, still looks forward to taking her place alongside fellow members in its annual exhibition.

Kim Michelle Toft with her latest BACCI pieces and, below, her iconic Ramada mural. Main photo: Estefania Minniti with her Happy Birthday exhibition.

She said there was a special connection between BACCI and the Northern Rivers Community Gallery because the arts group had helped establish the gallery.

“It’s sort of like homage to their contribution to the local art scene,” Toft said of the annual exhibition.

And for Toft, its importance is not simply about providing another exhibition opportunity for established artists.

“I just think it helps showcase artists who are not necessarily professional artists,” she said.

“The BACCI group is a group of artists who just like to do art and craft.

“It just gives people an opportunity to exhibit their work in a beautiful space.”

BACCI members can exhibit one larger work or two smaller works, as well as up to three craft items, providing an opportunity for emerging and aspiring artists to have their work displayed alongside long-established practitioners.

For Toft, whose exhibitions extend well beyond Ballina and who currently has work showing at Bundaberg Regional Gallery, it is also a chance to support the local organisation of which she has been a long-time member.

Her contribution this year includes her distinctive marine art painted by hand on silk.

Silk has been at the centre of Toft’s career, including her work as an author and illustrator of children’s books.

Even the enormous Ramada artwork began as a hand-painted silk before being photographed and reproduced on UV canvas for installation on the building.

Asked why she had remained so committed to the medium, Toft had a simple answer.

“The colour,” she said.

“Pure, vibrant, exotic. It’s a beautiful medium to work on.”

The paint penetrates the silk rather than simply sitting on its surface, she explained, leaving the image identical on both sides.

“It’s really saturated the fibre, so it becomes one with the material.”

More than a birthday celebration

The Grace Cruice Memorial Exhibition is one of four very different exhibitions now filling the Northern Rivers Community Gallery.

Just metres away, Argentina-born artist Estefania Minniti — known professionally as FANIA — is asking visitors to reconsider something almost everyone experiences: a birthday.

Her exhibition, Happy Birthday, looks beyond the cake, candles and colourful celebrations to the expectations that can accompany getting another year older.

FANIA, who is now based at Coopers Shoot, said birthdays provide an unusually clear marker of the passing of time.

“It’s also a moment where we kind of compare ourselves to others, acknowledge a number that represents what we should be doing,” she said.

“And what happens when the celebration ends? Is there that feeling of, ‘Now what?’”

Using painting, ceramics and sculptural forms, she explores how ideas about success, adulthood and personal achievement can become tied to age and comparison with others.

FANIA arrived in Australia from Argentina about 10 years ago and has painted since childhood, later incorporating clay, ceramics, fabric and embroidery into her work.

Her exhibition in Lismore last year explored migration and the experience of being away from — or between — homes.

She said each body of work tended to begin in much the same way.

“It all starts with a big question, and then I start taking some answers and making them into pieces.”

Four exhibitions under one roof

Also showing is Dale Burke’s The duality of, featuring mythical landscapes created using photography and found imagery as the foundation for paintings transformed through watery layers of vibrant colour.

Christina Waterson’s If not now, when? transforms everyday materials into sculptural objects to explore growth, grief, healing and renewal.

Together, the four exhibitions range from the work of some of the region’s established artists to emerging and community practitioners, while exploring everything from landscape and the natural world to ageing, identity, grief and renewal.

The exhibitions are open at the Northern Rivers Community Gallery, 44 Cherry Street, Ballina, until Sunday, October 11.

The gallery is open Wednesday to Friday from 9am to 3pm and weekends from 9.30am to 1pm.

Artist Christina Waterson with Mayor Sharon Cadwallader