Nealie began working with salt-glaze ceramics: he built his first anagama kiln in 1978, after visiting Japan.[4]: 124, 308 He has gone on to research and work with wood firing in Japan, Korea, China, the United States, Norway, Burma, Bangladesh and South Africa.[4]: 308
His work in this form, and working relationship with Australian potter Owen Rye, has been described by ceramic historian Janet Mansfield as 'a significant force and impetus for anagama and wood firing in Australia'.[5]: 22
The act of gathering and collecting artefacts is influential in his work. Nealie has said
Digging up old bottles, collecting scraps of weathered driftwood from the mangrove swamps or absorbing visual delights in fossils and artefacts in musky museums are often stimuli behind my work. My shapes are a synthesis of an emotional link I feel with past objects and the accidental play with clay in its making. I like to use a slow turning wheel with a minimum of water so that all honest marks of making remain to be seen.[5]: 22
In 1982 and 1987 Nealie was awarded the Premier Award at the Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Award. In 1988 he curated the New Zealand Expo Pavilion in Brisbane.[5]: 20 In 1992, he was a member of the Artists in the Sub-Antarctic expedition to the Auckland Islands and was featured in the Treasures of the Underworld exhibition at the Seville World Expo.[2] In 1993 he became a research fellow at Monash University.[2]
