• Casey Chen’s new exhibition brings together five ceramic plates and three tile-based wall works that draw on ancient and contemporary...

    Casey Chen’s new exhibition brings together five ceramic plates and three tile-based wall works that draw on ancient and contemporary stories, personal memory, and the artist’s lived experience growing up as the child of Chinese immigrants.

    Combining humour and nostalgia, Chen moves between cultural histories and everyday experience, bringing traditional ceramic forms and imagery into conversation with contemporary life. Across the exhibition, stories inherited through family and culture sit alongside references drawn from the world in which he grew up.

    The works reflect on the experience of living between cultures, and the ways identity is shaped, inherited, adapted, and made one’s own.

  • Casey Chen, A pretty kettle of fish, 2026

    Casey Chen

    A pretty kettle of fish, 2026
    hand-thrown porcelain, overglaze enamel, gold and platinum lustre, gold leaf
    54 x 26 x 26 cm

    Finalist in the Wynne Prize
  • Casey Chen, A grand assembly of minor folk heroes, 2026

    Casey Chen

    A grand assembly of minor folk heroes, 2026
    glazed porcelain tile, overglaze enamel, gold and platinum lustre, oak and timber frame
    40.5 x 33 cm
  • Casey Chen
    Casey Chen

    Blending childhood nostalgia with long-standing East Asian ceramic traditions, Chen applies his imagery to hand-thrown plates and vases, which are then fused with geometric patterns from traditional sources. The result is a cultural pastiche, and a dynamic conversation between traditional craft and contemporary perspective.

     

    Casey’s recent work draws upon imagery and motifs from the archetypal tales of the four great classic novels of Chinese literature: Romance of the Three KingdomsJourney to the WestWater Margin and Dream of the Red Chamber. His resulting works are both a self-exploration and an homage to the rich and enduring history of Chinese porcelain craft and Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

     

    Chen graduated from the National Art School in December 2020 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree majoring in ceramics, and was the recipient of the annual Harvey Galleries National Art School Exhibition award. Casey has been a finalist in numerous awards, and won the Muswellbrook Art Prize 2023.

     

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