Matthew was Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at the University of Leeds from 2009 until 2021. His research focused on creativity (esp. creative virtues and vices), artistic character, and inter-sections between aesthetics, ethics and psychology. Matthew is the co-editor of various collections including Creativity and Philosophy (Routledge, 2018) and has written many papers on creativity, art, and morality.
He appeared in the popular media (e.g., as the art expert and consultant for Channel 4's Hidden Talent series) and his book Revealing Art led to Matthew's nomination for the Times Higher Education Young Academic of the Year award 2005.
Matthew ran the Knowing Art series and Civilisation series of workshops at Tate Britain. He has given various art world lectures ranging from the invited public lecture at the National Icelandic Visual Arts Awards to the Charles Parodi Lecture at the International Miami Basel Art Fair. His public policy work has included work for the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Matthew was co-investigator for a large scale AHRC project 'Method in Philosophical Aesthetics: The Challenge from the Sciences' (2009-13) and was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2012 to start a longer term project on creativity.
Matthew is a past Chair of the British Society of Aesthetics (2003-2008) and was a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, the AHRC Science in Culture Advisory Group, an executive committee member for the Royal Institute of Philosophy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He was also a Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and a Visiting Fellow of Rhodes University, South Africa.
Matthew started at the University of Leeds in 1994, having completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Moral Philosophy, University of St. Andrews. Prior to that he graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in Philosophy (switching from Philosophy and Psychology in his third year). He was born and grew up in Surrey, along with a few years in Jamaica, and lived in Leeds and East London.