Matthew Fluharty

Matthew is the Founder and Executive Director of Art of the Rural and a member of M12 Studio. His work flows between the fields of art, curatorial practice, humanities, policy, and community development.

His poetry and essays have been published widely by platforms such as the National Gallery of Art and the Walker Art Center, and his work with his colleagues in the American Bottom region of the Mississippi River has been featured in Art in America. Matthew was the organizing curator for High Visibility: On Location in Rural America and Indian Country, a collaboration with the Plains Art Museum, and he is the recipient of a Curatorial Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Matthew was a cohort member of National Arts Strategies’ Chief Executive Program, and has served on the boards of Common Field, the Wormfarm Institute, and Visit Winona, as well as the Steering Committee for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design.

Born into a seventh-generation farming family in Appalachian Ohio, Matthew’s upbringing instilled a belief that everyday, multigenerational knowledge can teach us about where we have been, where we are, and where we might be going. Those lessons led him to seek ordination as a Novice Priest with the Zen Garland Order, a community that is a part of what is known as the Socially Engaged Buddhist movement.