Matt Gauldie is a multi-disciplinary Wellington artist currently living on the Kapiti Coast. He has over twenty years of professional experience working across a wide variety of mediums such as bronze, oil painting, print-making and illustration.
Matt is most recognised for his official posting as New Zealand Army artist from 2004 to 2015. During this time, he produced paintings and sculptures depicting New Zealand soldiers on active operations overseas and throughout New Zealand. As part of this role, he was deployed to various countries such as Afghanistan, East Timor and Solomon Islands. He also travelled with New Zealand government contingents to historical war sites in Egypt, Turkey, France and Belgium. The works produced during these years were curated into a major exhibition, ‘Within the Ranks’, held at Canterbury Museum.
As an artist, Matt believes in the importance of research underpinning his art processes. He approaches his art by immersing himself in the various communities and subcultures of New Zealand. This is reflected in the wide variety of subjects he has explored including: sheep shearers in Maniototo sheds, Rawhiri’s descendants at Whiria Pa in Hokianga, and Orchard workers in Maraekakaho Hawkes Bay. He has also travelled with a prominent military historian to study the movements and expeditions of the original WWI Army Artist Sapper Moore-Jones. This journey informed the development of the public sculpture of Sapper Moore-Jones gifted to Hamilton City Council in 2015.
In recent years, Matt has developed a reputation for his large scale public bronze sculptures. He was commissioned by the Turkish Ambassador to create a monument for Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington in 2017. His most recent work was commissioned by Waikato Combined Equestrian Group to commemorate the fallen horses that were sent to WWI and never returned.
