From Nottingham, Matthew Conduit studied at Mansfield College of Arts and then completed a BA Hons in Fine Art at Sheffield Polytechnic in 1981 (now Sheffield Hallam University). Thereafter, he exhibited his work in various solo and group exhibitions and was Director of the Untitled Gallery in the 1980s, when he relocated the gallery from the suburb of Walkley to the gallery's current location in the city centre in 1988 (now called Site Gallery). He then worked for over 15 years developing creative industry projects around the UK, starting with the Workstation and Showroom Cinema complex in Sheffield, before returning to producing his own work from around 2004.

Matthew works almost entirely with photography in the landscape, exploring post-industrial areas primarily around Sheffield. His latest large scale work was exhibited in a one-person show at the Graves Gallery in Sheffield. ‘Land’ was shown from January to June 2024. In 2020-21 he also curated and exhibited ‘Regeneration - The Sheffield Project’, a major exhibition and publication reviewing the work commissioned and exhibited in the 1980s by Untitled Gallery concerning the city and its regeneration, featuring work by fourteen photographers including John Davies, Anna Fox, John Kippin, Berris Conolly, Bill Stephenson and John Darwell, as well as himself.