Mathew Lynn

Mathew Lynn is one of Australia's most celebrated portrait artists, with a practice spanning over two decades that has expanded to embrace contemporary figurative painting and seascape. Based in Sydney, his principal association is with Nanda\Hobbs, with whom he has held two major exhibitions: Coogee Is Everywhere (2019) and The Silver Expanse (2020). His most recent exhibition, Pacific Infinite (April 2022), was held at Day Gallery, Blackheath — a series exploring Pacific saltwater places as heightened experience and transcendence through extreme colour.

Since completing his Master of Art at the University of New South Wales in 1996, Lynn has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize eighteen times. He has twice been runner-up, won the People's Choice Award in 1997 and the Packers' Prize in 2013, and been a finalist in both the Wynne and Sulman Prizes. Among his most noted Archibald entries are his 2022 portrait of artist Pierre Mukeba, Yaka moto, Magic Pierre, and his 2021 double portrait of community leader Muyambo Isaac Kisimba and himself, Apprentice – self-portrait with Papa K (aka I do see colour). He won the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award in 2010, and his work has been recognised in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, the Dobell Prize for Drawing, and the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing.

Lynn's portraits are held in major public collections including the National Portrait Gallery Canberra and Government House Sydney. In 2018 his portrait of Catherine Livingstone AO was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery as part of 20/20 Portraits, and in 2021 his commissioned portrait of Maestro Richard Bonynge was unveiled at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Penrith. He has held solo exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne, and from 2014 to 2022 served as an Artist Trustee for the Kedumba Trust.