Matthew Quick

Biography

Matthew has been named in Business Review Weekly as one of Australia’s top 50 artists. A selection of his work was recently acquired by Australia’s most significant collector and arts patron, Judith Neilson, for her permanent White Rabbit collection.

Over the last few years he has either won, or been selected as a finalist for, more than 70 major national art awards, including the Sulman Art Prize, the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, the Mosman Art Prize, the Shirley Hannan Portrait Prize, the Glover Prize, the Redland Art Award, the Paddington Art Prize, the City of Albany Art Prize, the Fisher’s Ghost Art prize, the Blake Prize Director’s Cut, the Black Swan Prize for Portraiture, the Townsville Open Art Award, the Duke Art Prize, the John Leslie Art prize, the Churchie and the Prometheus. He also writes fiction: his first novel was short-listed for the Vogel Literary Award.

He’s painted since his teens but was distracted by other careers – working variously as a university lecturer, photographer, salesman, art director, copywriter & interior designer. Until returning full time to painting, he was the founder and Creative Director of his own advertising agency, Q&A.

Matthew’s paintings have been used as CD covers in Australia, Greece and the US, and as book covers by Penguin Books & Era Publications. His work has been reproduced in many magazines, books and journals including Hi Fructose, Plastik, Juxtapoz, Empty, Colossal, Design Taxi, Communication Arts, Idea, Design World, Graphis & Novum.

He travels frequently, has resided variously in the UK, Portugal & Malaysia, and once lived underneath a grand piano in Greenwich. He has spent nights under stars in India, under surveillance in Burma, under ground in Bolivia and under nourished in London. His scariest moment was having machine-gun shoved in his face during anti-monarchy riots in Nepal, although crashing a para-glider into a forest was also something of a highlight.

“It’s not so crazy, you know…” he says. “Elias Canetti’s mother packed him off to study in Germany during the rise of fascism so that he might have a ‘broader education. I am already planning the next several series that will keep me busy for years – so all of this is just research.”