Matthew Fluharty

Matthew Fluharty is the Founder and Executive Director of Art of the Rural, a national organization that advances rural culture and quality of life through relationships that connect communities, build shared knowledge, and forward rural-urban exchange.

Matthew is a widely published writer and visual artist, and a member of M12 Studio, an award-winning interdisciplinary group of artists, researchers, and writers collectively based in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. He serves on the Board of Directors of Common Field, a national effort that connects, supports and advocates for the artist-centered field by providing a network for independent arts organizations and organizers. In late 2019, Colorfield, a book of poems, essays, and visual fieldwork in rural places, will be published in the US and Europe by Last Chance Press. Matthew is currently curating High Visibility: On Location in Rural America, a groundbreaking national exhibition set to open at the Plains Art Museum in November of 2020.

Matthew was born on a fifth-generation family farm in Appalachian Ohio, and he currently lives along the Mississippi River in Winona, Minnesota.