Matthew Ballou (1976, USA) is an artist and writer living in Columbia, Missouri with his partner and four children. Educated at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA ’01) and Indiana University (MFA ’05), he is a Full Teaching Professor of Painting and Drawing in the School of Visual Studies at The University of Missouri where he has taught since 2007. 

Over the last decade Ballou has shown his artwork in exhibitions across the US, most recently in venues from the Daum Museum in Sedalia, MO to the Riverside Art Center near Chicago, IL and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.

Writing has been an important aspect of Ballou’s output for over twenty years. Highlights of his publications include a cover feature on the work of Odd Nerdrum in Image Journal, a profile on painter Joey Borovicka in The New Territory, and an extensive review of Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park Retrospective for the Chicago-based publication neotericART. He recently completed invited texts for The MU Museum of Art and Archaeology, SEEN Journal, and Oxford University Press (Grove Art).

Ballou is a passionate educator and was honored to receive an Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award from the University of Missouri Graduate Student Association in 2012. He was nominated for the prestigious William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence in 2019 and 2020.