a little bit about me

Hi I’m Heather Matthew, a multidisciplinary artist living on Bundjalung country in Pottsville, New South Wales.

I believe everyone has a story to tell.

This is mine…

I’m a visual storyteller, primarily using paper to create narratives of time and place through collage, prints, pulp painting and artist books. My art and writing explore the interconnection between the human and elemental world, blending personal with socio-political stories.

A background in writing, books and libraries led me to embrace artist books as a way to incorporate multiple interwoven narratives. Paper ephemera, maps and postcards collected on my travels, text and postage stamps often find their way into my collaged artworks and artist books. Using alternative photographic processes such as cyanotypes has become another method of interrogating landscapes.

Artist residencies are a big part of my art practice, creating work embedded in place. In 2023 I lived in a motorhome in England while undertaking my Masters in Arts & Place, a Visual Arts masters program of place based artist residencies with Dartington Arts School through Plymouth University.

Common themes emerge in my art although the places may be different. The environment, the effects of climate crises and displacement through fire and floods, notions of home held within me. These are interwoven with an acknowledgment of my matrilineal heritage; of stitching, material thinking and considering how we make a home as refuge, wherever that may be.

Journey with me through my art as social and personal narratives of place and time.