Online Exhibition

CHESTER NEALIE is a woodfire potter working in Australia.
He began potting in his native country, New Zealand in 1964 after being inspired by visiting potters Shoji Hamada, Takeichi Kawai and Michael Cardew. He has since maintained a continuous potting practice for fifty six years. In 1991 he relocated to Australia and settled near Gulgong in NSW.
Chester began exhibiting in 1965 and has shown widely in solo and group exhibitions in Australasia and other countries.  He initiated and curated exhibitions and events in New Zealand and elsewhere.
In 1978 Chester attended the World Crafts Conference in Japan where he first saw woodfire kilns at Shigaraki and Bizen. Arriving back in New Zealand he built his first woodfire anagama kiln at his property at South Kiapara.
Since 1975 he has responded to invitations to exhibit, lecture and give workshops in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, USA, Korea, Norway, China, France, South Africa and other places. In many of these workshops he built and fired wood kilns.
He is represented in public and private collections in New Zealand, Australia and around the world and has been published in books and magazines both as writer and subject. His monograph Chester Nealie – Etched in Fire was published in 2015.
Over his career Chester has received numerous awards. Notably, he won the Fletcher Challenge International Award on two occasions – 1982 and 1987.
He has been a member of the New Zealand Society of Potters and the Auckland Studio Potters where he was past president. He is also a member of the Australian Ceramics Association and the International Academy of Ceramics.
Chester works from his studio at Goanna Ridge, Gulgong, where he has three woodfire kilns. He continues to produce and exhibit his woodfired work.
 
 
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2021 01 25