'Satellite' is a solo exhibition that accompanied the touring exhibition 'Moon Impact' (Caracas R, CNRS/ENS de Lyon, Lyon University) at the Mineralogy Museum, München, Germany.
The Earth formed over 4.6 billion years ago out of a mixture of dust and gas around the young sun. It grew larger due to countless collisions between dust particles, asteroids, and other growing planets, including one last giant impact that threw enough rock, gas, and dust into space to form the moon.
As the ‘Moon Impact’ exhibition explores the history of the universe through the lenses of geology and mineralogy, Bottomley's accompanying ‘Satellite” exhibition responds to Crafts challenges from synthetic materials of our Anthropocene era, re-applied to tradition techniques for which they were neither invented nor originally intended.

Bottomley was born in 1967, two years before the Apollo 11 moon landing and the space age has remained a constant and steady influence on his craft through digital manufacture, CAD design, as well as the wider cultural influence of science fiction. Through a practice-based methodology, Bottomley explores ancient goldsmithing and jewellery techniques in combination with 21st Century new materials and technologies:
-Copper Metal Foam: developed for use by NASA in their rocket engines and heat exchangers, enamelled
-Diamond dust: a bi-product of industrial diamond tool making
-Sintered alloys: materials made from the 3D powder metallurgy process known as sintering, which include Aluminium alloys for digital manufacture
-Silicon discs: scientifically grown in robot controlled, vacuum laboratories for the electronics industry
- Vitreous enamel (aka porcelain enamel) a smooth, glassy, and durable surface made to be fused to a metal substrate at temperatures over 800°C.
-Egyptian faience: a low-fire mixture of ceramic materials containing clay, sand, colorants, ceramic frit, and soluble salts traces