Born in Whanganui in 1973 and raised
in Taumaranui, Matt Dowman relocated to Auckland in 1995 to further
his artistic career. He began study at Whitecliffe College of Arts
and Design in 1999, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002
before going on to complete his Masters in Fine Arts (with Honours)
at Auckland University's Elam School of Fine Arts in 2004.
Dowman's work incorporates the
painterly and the street, high art and popular culture,
expressionism and loose figuration in one tumultuous whirl of
half-seen stencil, gestural brushstrokes, spraypaint effects and
often obscenely coloured and peristaltic intestinal forms that
buckle and sway throughout the canvas. His particular blend of
fragmented images suggest the constant and fragmented nature of
advertising imagery in modern urban life, while those of his works
that edge toward more organic forms test the boundaries of Abstract
Expressionism in the Postmodern era.
Dowman has won numerous scholarships
and was a finalist in the 2003 Mazda emerging Arts Award and the
2003 Wallace Trust Awards. In 2004, he was nominated as a finalist
in the Trust Waikato Contemporary art Award and in 2008 he was
runner-up in the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award. Since
2000, Dowman has held five solo exhibitions in Auckland and
participated in numerous other group shows and events including the
opening of Disrupt gallery and public installation in the Britomart
precinct. His works are held in notable New Zealand collections
including the Fletcher Trust and Wallace Trust and his work is
increasingly gaining an international following. Dowman currently
tutors in the Fine Arts faculty at Whitecliffe College of Art and
Design.