Matthew Galloway

Matthew Galloway’s creative output can be best described as documentarian and historiographic. Employing a spatial practice across design and art, his work is broadly interdisciplinary, operating within and beyond of the confines of the gallery. Past works include sculpture, installation, film, wall drawings, image and text, artist books and publishing. As someone who considers the act of making design and art to be an inherently political exercise, Galloway sees his work as using the methodologies and tools of design to engage directly with many real issues faced in contemporary culture; his socially-minded work expressing a desire for art to be a means by which to activate, challenge orthodoxies and present alternate paths.  
 
Galloway completed a Doctor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, in 2025 and holds an MFA from Ilam School of Fine Arts (2012). He has shown widely at many of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading contemporary art institutions, including Christchurch Art Gallery, Adam Art Gallery, Hastings Art Gallery, Te Tuhi, Artspace Aotearoa, The Dowse Art Museum, and Dunedin Public Art Gallery. In 2024 he was nominated for the international CIRCA Prize (London, Berlin, Milan) and in 2025 he will be a resident at Parehuia, McCahon House Artists’ Residency. His work has been included in a number of significant international exhibitions, including Provincia 53. Art, Territory & Descolonisation, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, and Melfas Línea orgánica, Museo de arte Contemporáneo del Sur, Buenos Aires (both 2017). He was a selected participant in the Cripta747 Studio Program, Turin (2019); ART Tifariti: After the Future, Art and Human Rights meeting in the Sahrawi Refugee Camps, Tindouf, Algeria (2016).

 

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS


2025
Watch History
Sumer Fine Art
Auckland,
13 October – 22 November
(solo)

ei numeroa 
Helsinki Museum of Technology
Helsinki, Finland
12 April – 1 June
(group)

2024
CIRCA International Art Prize
Multiple sites
London, Berlin, Milan
with Mohamed Sleiman Labat
1 September – 8 October

Empty Vessels
Ilam Campus Gallery
Christchurch,
29 May – 21 June
(solo)

Infrastructure: power, politics and imagination
Adam Art Gallery
Wellington, NZ
April 20 – June 30
(solo)

From the Ministry of Energy
Paludal
Christchurch, NZ
March 22 — April 6
(solo)

Eight thousand layers of moments
Gus Fisher Gallery
Auckland, NZ
15 March – May 11

 

2023
Empty Vessels
Hastings City Gallery
Hastings, NZ
December 9, 2023 – March 10, 2024
(solo)

Nova
Sumer
Auckland, NZ
May 31 – June 24

2022
The Power that Flows Through Us
Multiple-site public artwork,
Manatū Taonga - Ministry for Culture and Heritage
Central Otago, NZ
November 28, 2022 – January 8, 2023
(solo)

Endless
Te Tuhi
Auckland, NZ
February 27 – May 08
(solo)

2021
Things that Shape Us
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Christchurch, NZ
July 24 – November 21

Slow Boil
Artspace Aotearoa
Auckland, NZ
May 29 – August 07
(collective solo)

2020
Optimism & its afterlives
Enjoy Contemporary Art Gallery
Wellington, NZ
October 30 - December 5

2019
The Factory & its Memories
Cripta747
Turin, Italy
June 25 - July 25
(solo)

The Freedom of the Migrant
The Physics Room
Christchurch, New Zealand
May 16 – June 30
(solo)

Where the Wind Takes You
MAL
Seville, Spain
October
(solo)

2018
The Freedom of the Migrant
Dunedin Public Art Gallery,
Dunedin, New Zealand
April 21 – August 13
(solo)

2017
Provincia 53. Art, Territory &
Decolonisation
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de
Castilla y León,
Leon, Spain
September 17 – January 5

Melfas. Línea orgánica
Museo de arte contemporáneo del Sur, Buenos Aires, Argentina
25 August – 30 November

This Time of Useful Consciousness
The Dowse Art Museum,
Wellington, NZ
14 April - 30 July

2016
Beyond Exhausted
The Physics Room,
Christchurch, NZ
17 November - 23 December
(solo)

Artifariti 2016/After the Future
Sahrawi Refugee Camps,
Tindouf, Algeria
29 October - 12 November

National Contemporary Art Award
with Ella Sutherland
Waikato Museum,
Hamilton, NZ
3 September - 4 December

Grammars
Dunedin Public Art Gallery,
Dunedin, NZ
3 September – 20 November 2016

Beachhead’s PEACE OF MIND
Artspace Aotearoa,
Auckland, NZ
5 May – 25 June

The Ground Swallows You
Blue Oyster Art Project Space,
Dunedin, NZ
6 – 30 April
(solo)

Talente
International Crafts Fair,
Munich, Germany
23 February 24 - 1 March 2016

2015
Speaking Places: How to Work
with Ella Sutherland
Ramp Gallery,
Hamilton, NZ
23 April – 15 May
(solo)

 2014
Pay for the Printer
Triple Major, 
Shanghai, China 
6 – 28 December

2013
Seeing Which Way the Wind Blows
with Ella Sutherland
Split/Fountain,
Auckland, NZ
9 February – 2 March
(solo)

Public Good
Ramp Gallery,
Hamilton, NZ
22 February - 22 March

2012
This is an Invitation
Dog Park,
Christchurch, NZ
25 July – 14 August
(solo)