Nature’s Vase by Meg Keen. Best Adult Surface Decoration: 2025 Student Teacher Exhibition
31 JULY – 9 AUGUST 2026
Opening Preview and Prizes Presentation: Thursday 30 July, 6–7.30pm
The Student | Teacher Showcase! is a much-loved annual feature of the Canberra Potters Gallery exhibition program, celebrating the creativity, skill and diversity of our student and teacher community. Bringing together emerging and established ceramicists, the exhibition offers visitors to the Canberra Potters Gallery an inspiring glimpse into the learning, making and artistic journeys that shape our vibrant clay community.
Showcasing works by children, teens and adults who have taken classes over the past year, alongside pieces by their teachers and mentors, the exhibition reflects a rich variety of ceramic practice—from first explorations in clay to accomplished professional work.
Prizes across a range of categories, including wheel throwing, surface decoration, under 12s and Best in Show, will be awarded at the opening preview. Prizes are generously supported by Chris Harford, Maryke Henderson and Canberra Potters.
Join us at the Preview for a special evening to celebrate the exhibition opening and presentation of prizes. All welcome!
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR ARTISTS
Collection of unsold works: from Sunday 9 August to Tuesday 11 August. All unsold works need to be collected between the following dates/times:
Sunday 9 August 2-4pm (last day of exhibition), or
Join us for the exhibition preview and official opening, with remarks by Minister Yamaguchi of the Embassy of Japan, Canberra.
Paul Davis and Jacqueline Clayton have rarely exhibited together; in fact, their work has not previously appeared side by side outside a group exhibition. While they share similar histories of ceramic training in Japan and Australia, along with a mutual interest in the origins, science, and development of ceramic materials, their respective practices are shaped by significantly different personal and conceptual drives—an apt point of departure for the idea of ‘[Un]common Ground’.
Working from independent studios within a shared building, Jacqueline and Paul sustain an ongoing dialogue of exchange, critique, and reflection. Although their approaches to making remain distinct, this close proximity has fostered a dynamic conversation that sharpens the particularity of each practice. Out of this productive difference has emerged a collaborative offshoot, Togei Studio, founded on a shared commitment to material inquiry and the complementary strengths each artist brings to commissioned work. Notable among these commissions is a particular focus on the design and production of bespoke ceramic objects for fine dining.
In 2023, Paul and Jacqueline relocated to regional Victoria, near the historic gold-mining town of Rutherglen, now also known for its established wine and grain production. There, they are transforming a former agricultural research station into a ceramic studio facility. The distinctive character of the region’s winemakers and food producers speaks to the conditions from which their work emerges—soil, topography, climate, and farming practices. In much the same way, Jacqueline and Paul are drawing on the specificity of this locale, developing ceramic objects from mindfully selected local materials: Rutherglen red clay from its quartz-rich terrain, fine white clay from Oaklands, vine ash from nearby wineries and rice ash from the Riverina.
ARTIST BIOS
Paul Davis
Paul formerly lectured in Ceramics at Monash University, Melbourne and was Director of Sturt Pottery for ten years from 2001. Paul’s varied 50-year history of ceramic practice spans extended periods in both the US and Japan. In 1997 he was awarded a Japan Foundation Fellowship to study with 12th generation Hagi potter Saka Korazaemon, where he deepened his understanding of Japanese forming techniques, glazes and approaches to firing. His personal practice includes large scale sculptural work as well as a focus on vessels associated with the Japanese tea ceremony, reflecting the influence of time spent in Japan. For many years he was Senior Advisor to the Melbourne chapter of Urasenke Tea School. Paul has a deep ongoing interest in identifying and utilising locally sourced clay and glaze materials. He is an elected member of the International Academy of Ceramics and exhibits regularly both in Australia and overseas.
Jacqueline Clayton
Jacqueline studied Ceramics at National Art School, Sydney, Saga University and Kyoto University of Art, Japan. Accordingly, her individual practice reflects a synthesis of Eastern and Western aesthetics, materials, processes and technical knowledge. It encompasses sculptural installation and more recently, the design and production of bespoke ceramic objects and tableware. Projects include ceramics for restaurants Quay, Bennelong, Yiaga & Noma Australia. Jacqueline founded the Ceramic Studio at University Western Sydney; was Head of Ceramics and Head, School of Design Studies at UNSW, Sydney; International Co-ordinator for First European Woodfire Conference, Germany and Programme Co-ordinator for the Australian Ceramic Triennale, Sydney. Jacqueline exhibits regularly in Australia and overseas and has contributed to a range of local and international publications including Ceramics Art and Perception, Journal of Australian Ceramics and craft + design enquiry.
Image: Paul Davis, Oribe style platter. Photo by Paul Blake
Bling Bling brings together the work of Canberra region ceramic artists Liz Crowe, Lee Nelms and Jacqui Keogh for a contemporary exploration of decoration and the vessel. Embracing the aesthetic, affectionate, excessive and even derided aspects of bling, the exhibition celebrates spectacle while inviting viewers to consider the deeper cultural, personal and artistic meanings that underpin the works.
Bling is both sparkle and contradiction. This exhibition explores the duality of adornment and cultural commentary through contemporary ceramic art.
Liz Crowe works with lustres, copper wire, shiny glazes and engobes to explore her love of colour and texture, with touch and the tactile central to her hand-built and wheel-thrown vessels and wall pieces. Lee Nelms walks the tightrope between functional and sculptural, with her colourful and playful forms becoming containers for memory, humour, and vulnerability. Loosely inspired by a mid-century aesthetic, Jacqui Keogh leans into quirkier forms finished with heavy metallic glazes and lustres applied to carved surfaces in repetitive and block patterns.
Crowe, Nelms and Keogh met at Old Saint Luke’s Studio in Gundaroo, where a shared commitment to clay sparked an enduring creative friendship — realised here in their first collaborative exhibition.
ARTIST STATEMENTS
Liz Crowe
As a child ceramic boxes, containers and vases were particularly special. We didn’t have much. My mother would strive to bring beauty into the home. I was often as enamoured of them as she was. I learned the value of such things went beyond their cost; they made my mother happy.
Working with lustres, copper wire, glossy glazes, underglaze and engobes, I am guided by a love of colour. Texture and touch lie at the heart of my practice, giving rise to tactile vessels and wall pieces, handmade and wheel-thrown. Displayed alone or gathered together, the works enter into conversation with my co-exhibitors through shared colour, form and intention.
Lee Nelms
In this exhibition, I move between functional and sculptural forms in a spirit of colour and play, knowing that if I fall, the sculptural side will always be my ‘soft’ place to land. My forms are often quirky, and playful. expressing humour and celebrating the joyfulness of bling and the ways in which it animates the forms.
Jacqui Keogh
Loosely inspired by a mid-century aesthetic, my ceramic pieces drift toward quirkier forms, their carved surfaces enlivened by metallic glazes and lustres layered through repetition and bold, block-like patterning. I lean into that off centre pot, use bright colours, bold forms and strong patterning to exaggerate the character which emerges from the vessel.
GatheredTime operates less as an exhibition and more as a field of inquiry, where woven ceramics, bioplastics, and sculptures evidence the artist’s ongoing investigation into material experimentation and narratives of place. Drawing on long-held knowledge of basketry techniques, Lisa Stevenson weaves forms that are transformed through kiln-firing into precarious objects that reflect a felt sense of uncertainty, the idea that everything is in flux.
First shown at the 2025 ANU Graduate Show, works have been further developed while artist-in-residence at Canberra Potters under the Emerging Artist Support Scheme (EASS).
ARTIST STATEMENT
Following the spiralling line of twined fibres—circling, returning, forming—my hands trace a path that can be viewed both through and beside the woven object. Weaving, for me, becomes a record: of time and experience, of learning and unlearning, of connection, rupture, and renewal. By capturing these woven forms in ceramic and submitting them to the heat of the kiln, their final shapes emerge—influenced by placement, material tension, space, and the unknown. In this transformative process the original forms are rendered fragile and delicate.
These delicate, now ceramic, objects are the result of a year-long exploration into the meeting point of materials and techniques, of combining basketry with the heat and energetic unpredictability of ceramics. The soft, resilient woven paper structures are first submerged in liquid clay, then fired multiple times. Many vessels collapse or distort under the weight of the liquid clay during firing, yet these broken and buckled forms are often the ones I find most compelling.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Lisa Stevenson is an emerging multidisciplinary artist living and working on the unceded lands of the Ngunnawal people. With a passion for using natural materials, Lisa has been growing and harvesting her own basketry materials, as well as sustainably foraging materials from her local area. Using various basketry techniques, Lisa seeks to explore the materiality and potential of the fibres to create dynamic sculptural forms and biomorphic shapes. Completing her degree in visual arts at Australian National University in 2025, Lisa was the recipient of the ANU Drawing Prize 2024 and the 2025 QPRC Sculpture Award and was awarded the 2026 ANU Emerging Artist Support Scheme (EASS) residency at Canberra Potters following her graduate exhibition in 2025.
IMAGE: Exhibition installation view, Gathered Time, 2026. Photo by Anne Stroud.
Join us for the exhibition preview with opening remarks by renowned Australian contemporary ceramicist, Moraig McKenna. All welcome!
Collected Works brings together a curated selection of 60 works from the 4,500 works in the Australian Pottery Collection at Bemboka, presented in partnership with collectors and gallerists David Rofe and the late Judith Pearce – figures who have championed, exhibited and sold Australian ceramics since the 1970s. Spanning the 1950s through to 2025, the collection showcases work by many of the nation’s most celebrated and influential potters, highlighting their creativity, technical mastery and enduring impact as artists, teachers and mentors who helped shape the direction of Australian ceramics.
Arranged by decade, the exhibition features pieces available for purchase as well as works drawn from Bemboka’s permanent collection. More than a survey, it is a celebration of the story behind the collection itself: the passion, dedication and deep respect for Australian pottery that David and Judith have poured into this long‑standing, deeply personal project. It also offers an opportunity to honour Judith’s significant contribution to the field through her development of the Australian Potters’ Mark, now an important national resource for identifying and attributing ceramic works across the country.
Featuring works by artists including:
Doug Alexander | Ros Auld | Janet Beckhouse | Les Blakebrough | Greg Daly | Paul Davis | Janet de Boos | John Dermer | Pippin Drysdale | Simone Fraser | Victor Greenaway | Gwynn Hanssen-Pigott | Amy Kennedy | Col Levy | Janet Mansfield | Moraig McKenna | Susie McMeekin | Klytie Pate | Alan Peascod | Peter Rushforth | Owen Rye | Hiroe Swen | Jim and Jean Tyler | Thancoupie | Alan Watt | Kevin White
Gathered Time A second, smaller exhibition held in the gallery at the same time will be by Canberra Potters ANU EASS graduate, Lisa Stevenson. For more information visit here.
About Australian Pottery at Bemboka
Australian Pottery at Bemboka is a dedicated ceramics gallery showcasing work made in Australia over the past 90 years. Bringing together pieces by a diverse range of makers, the gallery offers a rich and evolving view of the country’s pottery traditions and contemporary practice.
Located at 24 Oliver Street in the village of Bemboka, NSW, the gallery sits within easy reach of the Far South Coast – approximately 2½ hours’ drive from Canberra, 30 minutes from Bega and 45 minutes from Merimbula.
The gallery is open Wednesday to Monday, 10am–5pm, and from 11.30am–5pm on Tuesdays. Find out more here
IMAGE: Exhibition installation view, Collected Works from the Australian Pottery Collection at Bemboka, 2026. Photo by Anne Stroud.
The Canberra Potters annual Members’ Exhibition is a highlight of our exhibition program and features some of the best work created by our members during the last twelve months.
The exhibition is Canberra’s major ceramic exhibition of the year and in 2025 features over 140 works by 65 artists.
The exhibition presents a selection of works created by some of our 700+ members over the past 12 months, demonstrating trends in contemporary ceramics and the inexhaustible breadth of ceramic arts practice. The works featured use different clays, and a wide variety of making, decorating and firing techniques to create works that are unique in form, texture and colour.
A number of prizes are awarded each year, made possible through the support of the Canberra Potters Society Board and the generosity of exhibition sponsors including Walker Ceramics, Keane Ceramics, Northcote Pottery Supplies, The Australian Ceramics Association, Craft & Design Canberra and The Curatoreum.
2025 Award Winners
THE DOUG ALEXANDER MEMORIAL AWARD Best overall exhibit
Winner: Malcolm Cooke, Jar, 2025 (#51)
WALKER CERAMICS BRIAN PRIVETT AWARD FOR SURFACE DECORATION
Winner: Cathy Franzi, After the Fires, 2025 (#17)
CESCO AWARD FOR WHEELTHROWING
Winner: Jacky Lo, Woodfired Tea cup with Haku-Oshi, 2025 (#86)
NORTHCOTE SCULPTURE AWARD
Winner: Robyn Campbell, First Light #2, 2025 (#93)
Thankyou to all of our members who submitted their work this year, the quality was outstanding!
2025 Award Winners present on opening night!Guest Judge Vicki Grima OAM with Doug Alexander Memorial Award winner Malcolm CookeAfter the Fires, 2025 by Cathy Franzi – winner of the Walker Ceramics Brian Privett Award for Surface Decoration
2025 GUEST JUDGE – VICKI GRIMA OAM
Vicki Grima OAM is an artist and highly respected ceramic arts professional. Through her artwork in media including clay, paint, collage, photography and textiles, she explores form, colour, pattern and texture. For many decades she was a teacher of adults and children sharing her love of making and living a creative life. From 2006-2023, Vicki was the Executive Officer of The Australian Ceramics Association and Editor of The Journal of Australian Ceramics, building and connecting the national ceramics community in Australia and beyond. She is now Director of Foster A Potter, a DGR charity organisation which supports and funds ceramics students to learn and work alongside experienced ceramicists and potters in a studio setting.
HISTORY OF THE DOUG ALEXANDER MEMORIAL AWARD
Each year since 1990, Canberra Potters have awarded the Doug Alexander Award to an exceptional potter in our annual Members’ Exhibition. The award is presented in celebration and honour of Doug Alexander who was the resident potter at Cuppacumbalong Arts and Craft Centre at Tharwa, from 1976 to 1981 – brought short by his untimely death.
Doug Alexander made a huge contribution to the development of functional ceramics in Australia and, when he moved to Canberra, Doug Alexander’s experience and knowledge gave a fillip to pottery in Canberra. The non-acquisitive $5000 cash prize is proudly sponsored by Canberra Potters.
Based in Kyoto, Masaru Nishikawa is one of Japan’s most renowned and exhibited ceramicists. Known for his imaginative animal forms, Nishikawa uses colour and hand-building techniques to create expressive and often humorous works.
In his first solo exhibition in Australia, Nishikawa presents new works created during his 2025 artist residency at Canberra Potters, alongside recent works created in Japan. The exhibition introduces Australian audiences to the poetic and playful works for which Nishikawa is recognised and widely collected in Japan.
Nishikawa says of the exhibition:
“I have been making works inspired by real and imagined animals for close to 40 years. For me animals are endlessly interesting and fun. When we observe animals closely and realistically, they are sometimes raw, sometimes grotesque, and sometimes frightening. I deliberately place myself at a distance, and try to depict animal forms playfully, in ways that bring out their humour. I hope that I’ve created this kind of atmosphere with the works in this exhibition.”
動物をイメージした作品を40年近く制作しています。
動物は、私にとってとても興味深く、楽しいものです。
動物を写実的にじっと観察していると、時々生なましく、グロテスクで、怖く感じる事があります。
私は、意図的にあえて動物と距離を置き、楽しくユーモアを感じられるように作りたいと心がけています。
そんな空気感のある動物作品が出来ればと願っています。
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Masaru Nishikawa (b. 1962 ) received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Ceramics) from Musashino Art University, Tokyo in 1987. He has been an adjunct lecturer at Osaka Fine Arts University in the Ceramics program since 2009. He is a multiple-time recipient of some of Japan’s most distinguished prizes for ceramics; most recently he received the Grand Prize at the NITTEN Exhibition (National Fine Art Exhibition) in 2025. Nishikawa’s work has been exhibited extensively in Japan and internationally and is a part of the permanent collections of the Kyoto Prefectural Institute, Library and Archives; Incheon World Ceramic Center, Korea; Maibara City, Japan; Welfare Center (Cen-Terrace), Osaka University, Japan; Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto; and the Shanghai Art Collection Museum.
An exhibition celebrating the remarkable milestone of 50 years of Canberra Potters as a vital part of the ACT’s creative community since 1975. Connecting Through Clay reflects on the rich legacy, artistic excellence, and evolving story of Canberra Potters through a curated exhibition featuring works from the Canberra Potters Collection alongside pieces by Honorary Life Members.
This celebratory showcase not only highlights the artistic diversity and depth of the Canberra Potters Permanent Collection but also pays tribute to the dedicated individuals – some of whom have been with us since our founding in 1975 – who have shaped and supported Canberra Potters.
Central to this journey is our Artist-in-Residence Program, which has been instrumental in cultivating artistic exchange, enriching our collection, and building our national and international reputation.
Over five decades, we’ve grown from modest beginnings into a thriving institution grounded in creativity, community and craftmanship. This exhibition is both a recognition of shared history and a celebration of the people and practices that have shaped who we are today.
Featuring Honorary Life Members:
INGRID ADLER | IRENE ARTHURSON | PAMELA BARKER | JANET DEBOOS | ALEX DE VOS MARLENE FLANAGAN | CATHY FRANZI | CHRIS HARFORD | MARYKE HENDERSON | IAN HODGSON JUDY MCDONALD | MEG MILLER | CHRISTINE PEARSON | HIROE SWEN
Featuring works by 40 artists from the Canberra Potters Permanent Collection including:
DOUG ALEXANDER (AUS) | KEVIN BOYD (AUS) | BEN CARTER (USA) | PAUL DAVIS (AUS) JACK DOHERTY (UK) | PIPPIN DRYSDALE (AUS) | JANET FIELDHOUSE (AUS) | KAZUYA ISHIDA (JPN) MICHAEL KEIGHERY (AUS) | RUTH JU-SHIH LI (AUS) | JEFF MINCHAM AM (AUS) | DAVID RAY (AUS)
Maryke Henderson, Dialogue 2005, 53 x 42 x 19cm, soda vapour glazed stoneware. Photo by Stuart Hay, ANU Photograph
Celebrating its 30th year in 2026, Australia’s premier satirical art prize, the Bald Archy Prize, celebrates the lighter side of art and the larrikin Australian spirit, showcases portraits that will make you think, make you talk and most of all make you laugh.
Created in 1994 as a foil to the Archibald Prize, the Bald Archy Prize provides artists with the opportunity to unleash their creativity with portraits teeming with humour, dark satire, light comedy or caricature. The $10,000 acquisitive prize is awarded for the best comic or satirical portrait of an Australian distinguished in art, science, letters, politics, sport, or the media.
Known internationally as the only art competition in the world to be judged by a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Maude, the satirical side of this event encapsulates the irreverent, larrikin Australian spirit in a way that appeals to people from all walks of life. This year Professor Maude Cockatoo is being assisted by special guest cartoonist David Pope.
2026 Bald Archy Portrait Prize Winner
Emperor Australis, by Mark Davis, was the winner of the 2026 Bald Archy Prize. A clever play on Jacques-Louis David’s iconic Napoleon Crossing the Alps, the painting depicts Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a heroic yet hilarious pose, swapping a stallion for a kangaroo as he conquers the Australian landscape.
Mr Davis won the $10,000 prize for his painting after it was announced at the Canberra Potters and Watson Arts Centre on Thursday 12 February 2026.
L-R: Jessi England, CEO and Artistic Director of Canberra Potters, 2026 Bald Archy Winner Mark Davis, Tim Kurylowicz, Manager, Museum of the Riverina
History of the Bald Archy
Judged by Professor Maude Cockatoo, the world’s premier avian art critic, the Bald Archy prize gives a genuine opportunity to artists of all styles and standards to create portrait paintings of humour, dark satire, light comedy or caricature. In its’ first year the prize struck a chord with the public and a nerve with the arts establishment.
“It was meant to amuse – apparently a problem with people who believe audible laughter shouldn’t be permitted in an art gallery, let alone unsolicited conversation with a complete stranger” – Peter Batey OAM, 2015
While the Coolac Festival of Fun was retired after 12 years, due to public demand the Bald Archy Prize lives on. After the passing of Peter Batey in 2019, the administration of the Bald Archy Prize was handed over to the Museum of the Riverina, Wagga Wagga. It is now internationally known and has been exhibited across Australia. Winning subjects have included Kerry Packer, Shane Warne, John Howard, Pauline Hanson and myriad other Australian icons.
The Judging
The Bald Archy Prize is currently the only art competition in the world judged by a sulphur crested cockatoo.
With an online PhD from the Marilyn Munro University of Little Rock, Professor Maude Cockatoo is the most qualified art critic, avian or otherwise, in Australia (according to Maude). As Coolac’s Visual Arts Laureate, Maude has been the sole judge of the Bald Archy Prize from its inception at the 1994 Coolac Festival of Fun.
Maude’s number one rule for a prize-winner is that it must be funny. Her idea of humour, according to a 2015 interview includes, “wit, slapstick, satire, vulgarity, farce, black comedy, irreverence and everything else that falls between high and low comedy”. On the other hand, Maude loathes ‘hate portraiture’, or ‘soap box art’ as she calls it. Making a special appearance in 2026 as guest assistant to the cockatoo, is celebrated cartoonist David Pope.
Recent Bald Archy Prize Exhibitions at Canberra Potters
