About the artist

Artist Bioagraphy

Born in the UK, Matt Dampier grew up between places, from the Persian Gulf in Oman to the Mediterranean in Cyprus. Those early years, shaped by movement and changing landscapes, planted a lifelong curiosity about the world and how people move through it.

Before becoming an artist, Matt spent much of his life in motion. First as an international horse trainer, and later as a commercial airline pilot, he traveled widely and saw the Earth from perspectives few experience. From the cockpit, coastlines, deserts, rivers, and cities revealed themselves not as destinations, but as flowing systems, shaped by time, weather, and human presence.

After twenty-five years in aviation, Matt returned to the creative pull that had always been there. He studied fine art at Sheridan College, graduating with honours, and began translating his years in the sky into visual form. Working primarily in ink, paint, and mixed media, he creates aerial landscapes that reflect both the beauty of the planet and the quiet marks we leave upon it.

Today, Matt lives and works in Canada, exploring the space between natural flow and human structure. His work invites viewers to slow down, look from above, and reconnect with the fragile, shifting surface of the world beneath us.

Artist Statement

For over twenty-five years, I’ve seen the Earth from above. From the cockpit, rivers slowly carve their way through the land, coastlines fade into the sea, and cities stretch outward in quiet patterns. That view changed the way I see the world, not as places on a map, but as something living, always shifting.

Working in ink, paint, and mixed media, I create aerial landscapes inspired by those moments in the sky. Fluid marks and layered surfaces echo water, wind, and terrain, while subtle lines and shadows suggest the human presence, roads, fields, and the traces we leave behind.

Each piece is a way of returning to that perspective. I’m drawn to the balance between natural flow and human structure, between beauty and fragility. My hope is that these works invite you to slow down, to look across the surface of the land, and to feel a quiet connection to the world we inhabit.