About Matti

You can find me through @MattiDoingArt and #MattiDoingArt

I am a disabled, queer, migrant artist born in New Zealand and now living in Sydney, Australia.

I like documenting art-walks through urban and rural landscapes, finding patterns, exploring colour, and creating beauty. This leads me to favour a post-disciplinary process involving elements of drawing, graffiti, installation, land art, painting, and photography that leaves space for the subject, materials, and tools to affect the mark-making.

I completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at the University of New South Wales where I won the Mental Health Month art competition with a drawing that documents my journey through depression, anxiety, and PTSD. I was also highly commended in the Jenny Birt Painting Award and Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, and shortlisted in the Elaine Bermingham National Watercolour and Mornington Peninsula Gallery National Works on Paper prizes.

Recently I interned as a gallery assistant at AD Space, learning artist support, installation/deinstallation, administration, and hosting. This shifted my mindset from student towards professional artist and has resulted in an expansion of my practice: I have just installed my first non-university solo show. I have also found a new love for installing in galleries. The precise measuring and technical craftwork stimulate my creative side and allow finer control over what the space says and why.

Awards and Exhibitions

Awards

  • 2025: Lived-Experience Art Competition (Finalist)
  • 2025: Pride Art Prize (Highly Commended)
  • 2024: Mornington Peninsula Gallery National Works on Paper Prize (Shortlist)
  • 2023: Elaine Bermingham National Watercolour Prize in Landscape Painting (Shortlist)
  • 2023: Mental Health Month Art Competition (Winner)
  • 2022: Jenny Birt Award (Highly Commended)
  • 2021: Tim Olsen Drawing Prize (Highly Commended)

Solo Shows

  • 2024: Struggling with Landscape
  • 2023: The Somersby Falls Project
  • 2020: Reducto palettum
  • 2020: Stranger Thongs

Group Shows

  • 2025: Immersion
  • 2024: Paper Form
  • 2024: Retro
  • 2023: The ME in Mental Health
  • 2023: Illuminate Animation and Moving Image Festival
  • 2023: Pulp Bound
  • 2022: The Annual
  • 2022: Tim Olsen Drawing Prize
  • 2022: Jenny Birt Award
  • 2021: The Annual
  • 2021: Tim Olsen Drawing Prize
  • 2021: Jenny Birt Award
  • 2021: Pulse
  • 2019: Artsweek Microscopic Unicellular Organisms

Commissions and Public Art