Donald MacDonald

"I am a painter deeply intrigued by the dynamic relationship between realism and the contrasting process of creating from imagination and memory. I am heavily influenced by the beauty of the natural world around me and how I can interact with it using imagined narratives and memories.

My process consists of meticulously constructing and staging three-dimensional scenes using paper, photography, drawings and found items to create compositions, these can take the form of landscapes, still lifes, or abstracted paper constructions, which I then use as a reference for my paintings. I tend to use paper as a tool to integrate elements of drawing from memory into realistic paintings, blurring the lines between observation and imagination. I am fascinated how these two very different elements can work together on the same canvas."

Donald’s paintings are held in many private collections worldwide. In addition to this he was selected as the Scottish representative for the Johnson and Mead International Exhibition in the USA, and in 2009 his painting Broken Heart was accepted in to the BP Portrait Award Exhibition. In 2013 he exhibited a commissioned painting in the Imperial War Museum in Manchester and later won a place in the 7th Figurativas painting and sculpture exhibition, held in the European Museum of Modern Art, Barcelona. In 2017 he won the Public Choice Award at the Art Gemini Prize and more recently he has been shown at the Columbia Threadneedle Prize (2018), The Lynn Painter Stainers Prize (2019), The Scottish Portrait Awards (2019), The Westmorland Landscape Prize (2019) and The Royal Scottish Academy (2019,2020 ) 2024 (Tatha Gallery Prize and RSA Maud Gemmell Hutchison Bequest winner), ING Discerning EYE Exhibition 2024 (Scottish Regional Prize Winner).