Born in Jamaica and raised in Canada, loud, outspoken, and endlessly entertaining Matthew Finlason is a maverick designer, art director, and producer of film and television projects. The award winning host of HGTV’s television series ‘The Stagers’, Matthew is renowned for staging and transforming interiors, with DEKORA into show suites that has established him as the premiere home-staging expert in both the design community and the real estate industry. ‘The Stagers’, produced by Paperny Films and creatively produced by Keith Behrman received four Leo Awards for which Matthew won “Best Host” in a “Lifestyle Series”. In his battle for supremacy, he was invited to compete on ‘HGTV Showdown’ with team-mate Olympic gold medalist, Kristy Yamaguchi, in a high-pressure, high-octane race-against-the-clock design competition!
Learning the ins-and-outs of building and property development from the ground up he discovered, like his father, a talent for designing and renovating homes. Like his decorator mother, he possesses an eclectic knack for breathing life into any dull space leading the media to coin Matthew as “The Anti-Decorator” and “The Furniture Whisperer”. He continues to develop real estate, design interiors, decorate and stage homes throughout Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and the Caribbean. He is currently Executive Producing multiple lifestyle reality television projects with The Concept Room – an artistic collective he formed to develop and execute ideas in production design, art direction, stage design, interior design, and lifestyle programming.
He is most proud having worked with and designed for inspirations Scott Smith and Gregory Middleton on ‘Capturing George’, a short film commemorating George F. Walker’s Governor General Award; and Cam Labine’s feature film ‘Control ALT Delete’, produced by Stephanie Symns and Lynne Stopkewich.
Matthew would “rather be trusted, than liked” and daily pays homage to his mentors Dina Holmes, his Jungle Fev-ah ,who introduced him to the playa and Keith Behrman, his Geppetto, who revealed to him his ability to manifest for good.”
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