At 14 he left school to work with a hardware merchant, later studying art during nights at Art School in his spare time.
He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting a record nine times.
Wilhelm Ernst Hans Franz Heysen was born in Hamburg, Germany.
He made his feature film debut as Johnny Silver in Jez Butterworth's directorial debut, Mojo.
Prior to Mojo, Matheson had appeared in various television series.
Matheson played guitar for the role of Luke Shand, a youthful rocker helping to invigorate an old band in the film, Still Crazy.