Matthew Elliott.
Matthew Elliott is a practicing artist living with Cerebral Palsy, living and working in NSW, Australia.
As an abstract landscape painter and drawer he has a fascination with dream states, creating lucid mindscapes with a range of media that draw inspiration from the natural environment. Matt’s creative output stems from a fascination with the motion and fluidity of water, and the forces of nature. Harnessing his imagination and entire physicality to paint and draw on both large and intimate scales, Matt’s powerfully emotive dreamscapes are as alluring as they are compelling in their depiction of the natural scenes.
Matt Elliott is determined to not let his disability hinder what he wants to do in life. He has been an active member at Studio ARTES Northside for 21 years and has been consistently exhibiting his art in their annual exhibition program. Recently Matt has also been actively seeking exhibition opportunities and applying for art prizes – including winning first prize in the Disability Category of the Hawkesbury Agricultural Show Art Prize (Sunset over Uluru, 2021) and exhibiting alongside one of his artist inspirations, David Collins, in ‘The River’ group exhibition curated by Alexandra Mitchell, at the Cottage Gallery, Brooklyn (On the Harbour, 2021). Matt was selected for the Hill End Artist In Residency program (2019), however this residency was postponed due to Covid-19 and has yet to be rescheduled due to funding and accessibility complications. Matt Elliott is an awardee of the Studio A Professional Pathways Award (2018) and has completed his first solo exhibition.
Collaborations to date.
-
Bundanon residency, 2022.
After a year postponement due to Covid-19 and severe weather, Matt Elliott & Luke Abdallah began their 2 week long artist residency at Bundanon. Each artist aimed to produce a body of work inspired by the surrounding flora and fauna of the site, and hoped to create works which were not necessarily realistic or literal in their depiction of place, but which captured the sense, or the essence of the environment. Taking inspiration from the sights, sounds, textures, smells and vibrations of Bundanon, the collaborative artists have produced seperate series, designed to be shown together.
-
Fireworks on the Harbour, 2021.
Harbour Bridge, NYE, is a relatively early experimentation in collaboration between the two artists, combining Luke’s energetic mark-making with Matt’s dreamlike interpretation of the scene.
-
Interplay I & II
Interplay I & II was created collaboratively whilst the artist were in residence at Bundanon, 2022. The work has since shown at ‘Imagining Bundanon’, a collaborative exhibition featuring Luke Abdallah & Matthew Elliott at 107 Green Square in March - April 2023.
Ultimately, this work was sold at the Open Field Festival in Berry, 2023.
Friends Bonnie, Radhika, Wendy and Catherine visited the festival and have shared some pictures from the show below!
-
Bilpin, 2023
Just before Luke’s BigCi residency, he visited The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden - Mount Tomah, where he completed the print for this work.
When Matt visited Luke during his residency, inspired by the environment at Bilpin, Matt took the work back to his Studio to work over, adding colour and line in a variety of mediums, responding both the the environment and Luke’s impression of Mt Tomah.
