Exhibited at the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, June-July, 2021
Curated by Jan Irvine-Nealie

Chester Nealie’s pots, selected from his six-decade long career of dedication to a unique wood-fired aesthetic, form the basis of this survey exhibition of his work, Etched in Fire. The exhibition documents Nealie’s lifelong pursuit of his way of life making pots and firing them in his anagama-style kilns at various locations from Aotearoa and Australia and most recently at his home in Gulgong in the central west of NSW. It is a joyous celebration of his creativity expressed in pots which explore the beauty of unevenness, as Yanagi (1972) describes in his book, The Unknown Craftsman.