Artist Mathew Lynn lives and works in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney Australia. He is primarily known as a portrait painter, working on public and private commissions in Australia and the UK. He is also known through his entries in the Archibald Prize for Portraiture, held annually at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Australia. Twice a runner-up and also voted ‘Peoples Choice’ in this competition, the Archibald Prize has perhaps the highest profile of all Australian art prizes. His portraits can be found in major institutions, including the National Portrait Gallery Canberra, and he has been included on the register of artists for the Historic Memorials Committee (Australia Council for the Arts). Mathew Lynn also teaches portraiture, both drawing and painting.

In June 2010 he won the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award (held at the Bega Valley Regional Gallery), for his portrait of sinologist and author Pierre Ryckmans, judged by writer and art critic John McDonald.

In addition to his commission work, Mathew Lynn is currently working on two portrait projects; a series of portraits for the Royal New South Wales Regiment, and a series of portraits depicting descendants and elders from the Upper Blue Mountains Aboriginal Community.

As a landscape painter, his focus has been on a certain type of painting capturing transitory light, atmosphere and mood, often using simplified and sometimes abstracted forms, exploring the tension between pure composition, observed reality and the ephemeral. What is important for him is recreating that sudden flash of recognition having just experienced a beautiful or moving composition in the natural or man-made world, and especially where to two come together, very often bathed in a momentary fleeting light. These paintings are generally on an intimate scale and are inspired by familiar places observed at different times, and also places he has visited on his travels in Australia and abroad.

Image: © Mathew Lynn, Catherine Asquith Gallery