Design and Art Australia Online

Biography

Born Sydney 1964. Matthew Harding completed Art Certificate Studies (Honours) at the Hunter Street School of Art and Design, Newcastle, NSW in 1985 and graduated from the Australian National University, Canberra School of Arts with a Bachelor of Arts -Visual (1st class Honours) in 1995

In a career spanning three decades Harding has produced a substantial body of work across a wide range of artistic disciplines that includes over 40 significant public sculpture commissions both here and abroad. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, scholarships and fellowships including a Churchill Fellowship (1998), Creative Arts Fellowship artACT (2003), the Canberra Critics Circle Award (2003), the Rosalie Gascoigne Award, ACT (2005), the inaugural Sem Foundation Scholarship at Studio Sem, Italy (2005) and a Helen Lempriere Scholarship, Sculpture by the Sea (2010)

During the previous decade Harding has exhibited consistently in national sculpture awards across Australia, including the prestigious McClelland National Sculpture Survey and Award (2007, 2010, 2012 with the Peoples Choice Award 2010); the National Sculpture Prize (NGA 2003); the Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award exhibition (2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, Wyndham City Council Acquisitive Award and Popular Choice Award 2004) and Sculpture by the Sea (1999, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2103 Bondi and Aarhus) and the Lorne Biennale (2007, 2009, 2011, 2014 People Choice Award 2014) .

Matthew Harding has participated in numerous national and international symposia, conferences, workshops and cross-cultural collaborations, and is represented in several important public and private collections, including the NGA, the Royal Collection and the Boston Museum of Fine Art.