Matthew Asling

 Matthew Asling

Matthew Asling is an Australian Assyrian artist based in Naarm/ Melbourne. Asling employs a range of ready-made materials such as tarpaulin, gauze and burlap, in lieu of the traditional canvas. These materials function as found collage assemblages that emphasise tactility on the surface on the works. Asling’s work is informed by his Assyrian Australian identity, his family history of displacement and migration, and the history of Assyrian genocide and religious persecution. This history of displacement is woven into the fabric of his paintings, with Assyrian Neo-Aramaic script often stitched or ironed into the works. The works are reflections on the notion of home, diaspora and the complexities of belonging.

Asling is the 2023 recipient of the Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship, and will undertake a four-month period of travelling research throughout Europe and the Middle East during the second half of 2025. Asling holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of Arts. His inaugural commercial solo exhibition will be held at Daine Singer in May, concurrently with a solo exhibition in New York.