Owen Rye: A Review

Gallery LNL is delighted to present a solo exhibition of recent and rare works by Owen Rye, on view from 14 November through 13 December, 2025. As Rye’s first solo show in Sydney in nearly a decade, the exhibition brings together his mature anagama fired pieces, exemplars of a practice which established him as one of Australia’s most celebrated wood-firing ceramicists, alongside his more recent explorations beyond the anagama tradition, into experiments with glaze and play with vessel forms.

The exhibition’s anagama pieces mark the last of Rye’s works with anagama firing, following his retirement from them in 2016. These works show Rye’s superb command of the wood-firing process, which demands a mindful integration of all stages of making. In the selection of clay, the shaping of form, the setting of temperature and atmosphere, everything must be a staging for the firing, as the fruition which tests at once the entire sequence. Rye’s reflection on the process moves him towards a broader reflection on those processes of nature and making, at whose intersections the works form.