Mathew Lynn

Mathew Lynn (b. 1963), primarily a portrait painter, lives and works between Sydney and the Blue Mountains. His practice now explores traditional and contemporary representations of the figure and the phenomenon of personhood, based on and evolving from his many years of experience as a portraitist. Since obtaining his master’s degree in art from the University of New South Wales in 1996, he has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize fifteen times. He has twice been runner-up for the Archibald, and won the People’s Choice Award in 1997 and the Packers’ Prize in 2013. In 2010 he won the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award, in which he has been a finalist four times, most recently in 2016 for his portrait of singer David Lēha. He was a finalist in the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award in 2012 and 2014 and the Dobell Prize for Drawing in 2012; in 2013 and 2014, he was a finalist and commended in the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing. He has held solo exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney and his portraits are in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and Government House, Sydney.