Craft / “Triptych – 40 Years of Ceramic Leadership. Alan Watt, Janet DeBoos, and Greg Daly”. At Nancy Sever Gallery, Civic, until February 27. Reviewed by MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE.

THIS is a major and significant exhibition.

Major, as three of Australia’s pre-eminent ceramic artists are exhibiting, and significant as it represents 40  years of teaching in the ceramic arts at the now ANU Canberra School of Art & Design. Peter Haynes curated the show and wrote an introductory essay.

Alan Watt’s career spanned nearly 20 years – the formative years for the then School of Art. His work reflects his strong connection with the landscape and human intervention and imposition upon it.

Smooth, curved planes are juxtaposed with rough surfaces, showing his innate understanding of clay and its possibilities. The surfaces are rich and complex, with the weight of the land. Several forms were re-fired last year, with copper soda fuming producing iridescent flashes on the smooth planes.

Recently Watt has begun to make similar forms in bronze. The same dynamic surfaces contrast, with smooth and rough combined in one form. Polished areas catch the light and highlight the torn surface.

Janet DeBoos took over from Watt at the School of Art and taught until 2013.

DeBoos’ work is quite different to that of Watt. It is highly refined with an intellectual edge. Her work combines the seemingly unrelated cultures of China and Australia. DeBoos tends to work in series, and from her domestic ware she is showing three works from the “Getting Lost series”.

A ceramic tray holds mugs, beakers and a pourer and tall teapot or coffee pot make up the set. These are more decorative than functional and show the artist’s sense of humour. The black and white surface decoration highlights the slightly altered forms. A second set is simpler, in bright white with a fine black line emphasising the edges of the cups, and the sections of the teapot. I find the first work a bit hectic, while the second work is calmer and more elegant.

The Chinese influence on DeBoos’ work is particularly evident in the forms of her work: lidded jars and shaped gourds. Several have an applied overglaze decal, a technique she has perfected since her regular trips to China. She also combines surface decorations of terra sigillata, some of it from Central Australia.

Greg Daly is a prolific artist, creating thrown forms – mostly vases, bowls, and platters. One of his particular skills are the finely thrown forms and many are on exhibit. He lives in the mid-west and his studio looks out on to paddocks, and the surface decoration reflects the environment in which he works.

He captures the weather – storms, morning light and mists, evening light, sunsets. Lustre adds an extra dimension to the glazes that decorate his work. The Storm Series is especially dramatic, with swirling greys and areas of bright colours. The vivid glazes enable audiences to read the landscape, bathed in sunlight or the grey fury of storms, and the hues in the sky.

The Australian landscape is a major presence in Daly’s work, combined with the ambient weather.

This is an outstanding exhibition, and these artists are masters. Each artists’ work complements the others.  Through the exhibition, we can see the important legacy of their contribution to, and the major involvement of, the ceramics workshop at the Canberra School of Art.