Art by Matt Dampier
For 25 years, I flew above the world as a commercial pilot. Now, I paint the view from that sky.
My aerial landscapes are shaped by a lifetime in flight a perspective where borders disappear, and the Earth reveals its quiet beauty and unity.
I invite you to see the world from above, as I have.
Afghan Skies “Painted from memory and photos of a sunset flight on route to New Deli”
I’ve spent a lot of time looking at landscapes from a distance.
For many years, that distance was literal. Flying offered a way of seeing where detail gave way to pattern, weather moved slowly across land, and familiar places became something quieter and more abstract. Over time, that perspective settled in. Even now, in the studio, it shapes how I look, how I decide, and when I stop.
The paintings come from that way of seeing.
Night Coast 2025 9”/12”
Although my background is in aviation, the work isn’t about flight itself. It’s about sustained distance and what it does to perception. From above, boundaries blur, scale recalibrates, and the eye moves differently. That sensibility continues to guide the work long after leaving the cockpit.
Moonlit Approach 2024, 30”/40”
They aren’t descriptions of specific locations. They begin instead with questions: what happens when you pull back? What remains when information is reduced? How much needs to be said for something to feel complete? I’m interested in the space between recognition and ambiguity, where landscape is felt rather than identified.
Most of the work develops slowly. I make small decisions about horizon, proportion, and atmosphere, then live with them for a while. Often the most important moments are subtractive, removing a mark, softening a contrast, letting an area breathe. I’m not trying to create drama. I’m paying attention to balance, restraint, and quiet shifts that change the whole reading of a surface.
Fall Over Ther Kawartha’s 2025, 24”/36”
People sometimes describe the paintings as calm. I think that calm comes from space, from not forcing the eye to land too quickly. I want viewers to move through the work at their own pace, bringing their own memory of landscape, rather than being told where they are or what they’re seeing.
This site is both a place to view finished paintings and a quiet entry point into how they come to be. If you’ve arrived here from a short video or an image that caught your attention, you’re welcome to stay a while. Distance has a way of changing things.
For 25 years, I flew commercial aircraft, watching the world unfold below me at 30,000 feet. From that height, the Earth felt quiet. Borders vanished. Humanity seemed somehow closer.
When my time in the sky came to an end, I turned to the canvas as a way to stay connected to that perspective