Matthew Schrader

Matthew Schrader (born 1981) is an American visual artist, photographer, and educator. Schrader teaches at Middlebury and the Milton Avery School of Fine Arts at Bard College, where he is the co-chair of sculpture.

Early life Matthew Schrader was born in 1981, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Schrader received a BFA degree from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a MFA degree from Bard College in 2012.

Schrader has shown work at galleries such as Someday Gallery, Franza Kaka, KAJE, White Columns, Anthony Greaney, Nino Mier, Fierman, and Cleopatra's.

Work Schrader has repeatedly highlighted the invasive plant ailanthus altissima throughout his work.

In 2021, Schrader had a solo exhibition at White Columns, titled M. Obultra 3, focusing on an editioned portfolio containing a hand-printed woodcut, 7 photographs, a painted wooden object, 3 PVC transparencies, and Ailanthus seed pods installed in the gallery. The portfolio was originally created as a published edition in 2020.

Schrader focused on photos of the invasive plant ailanthus altissima in his contribution to Life Without Buildings, a group exhibition at MoMa PS1 focused on community gardens and art in public space. Curator Jody Graf described Schrader's work as poetic metaphor: "Schrader’s images show the trees growing precariously, stubbornly, in the unlikeliest of places: amid piles of bricks, hugging chain link fences. They lend themselves to metaphor: artists such as David Hammons and musician Cecil Taylor have alluded to them in their works—a poetic history that Schrader builds on."

In 2022, Schrader signed a petition in support of artist Shlleyanne Rodriguez, after she faced right-wing media attacks.

In 2025, Schrader published a monograph of photographic research titled Ensemble, alongside his solo exhibition Subsurface at KAJE. He has also presented an installed version of the same photographs as Ensemble(ground) by taping them to gallery walls, as in a 2025 group exhibition at Franz Kaka in Toronto.