Matthew Hurdle - Should I remember you #4, 2024

Born in Australia, lives and works in Brisbane.

Matthew Hurdle uses time-consuming meditative papermaking techniques to examine guilt and humility, transforming ash-stained sackcloth into fibrous paper. Hurdle's practice shifts between Ancient Christian themes, Modernist art history's layering and a contemporary desire to touch the real art object. Extending on American physician and artist Dr Eric Avery's work which demonstrates the transformative process that papermaking can have when dealing with guilt and trauma through the process of neurogenesis in the human brain. In this context, Hurdle's work extols people to seek the renewal of the mind. Similarly, these quiet abstractions provide a fortifying space for audiences to contemplate the beauty, texture and labour of art. 

In 2021, Hurdle was shortlisted for the Milani Gallery Industry Award and the Iain Turnbull Award. Following Hurdle's completion of the Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 2023, he is currently pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Visual Arts at the Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University.