SOMA | Matthew Donaldson

Necessary Arts Collective
May 5
3 min read

Exhibiting May 5 - 19, 2026

"I started drawing when I was very young, bedazzled by the world of cartoons and superheroes and comic strips. I drew a lot of inspiration from them, drawing so many dinosaurs and Daffy Ducks and Batman. As I grew into a more mature artistic practice (which I know now was a mistake and have resolved to claw back my immaturity.) I had to completely revise my approach to the human figure. If you did not know, comic book superheroes are not the best place to learn accurate human anatomy. An overlooked place to learn about composition and colour and visual storytelling, but not realistic anatomy. Inspired by the old masters and other big names in the arts, I pushed my work to be more realistic, more challenging. I felt that the key to mastering the figure was all in the human hand. Pursuing the perfect hand painting, I ended up with dozens of paintings of hands and now struggle with justifying their existence as something other than personal Mount Everests.

When you paint and create images almost exclusively of a thing, you inevitably end up meditating on that one thing. So, I thought about the human hand a lot. Human beings have achieved so much in a short time on the Earth; Neanderthals building bonfires, to Henry Ford building cars, to Technological Oligarchs building AI superprograms. Getting older, I have become more and more selective of what technology I allow into my life- not full Luddite yet, but enough has happened in my lifetime to make me handle new technological advances with sharp suspicion and wearing personal protective equipment. It is important to cultivate physical real objects, this body of work evolved to become something of a meditation on reconnecting with nature, gardening, foraging and cultivation. For the record, I do none of this.

But all these things we have made and achieved started with the hands doing the labour of pulling our dreams into the world. Marco Pierre White is a notorious celebrity and chef, and is credited with this quote:

“A cook who works with his hands is a labourer, a cook who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman, but a cook who works with his hands, his brain and his heart, is an artist".

All human novelty starts with someone shoving their hands in the dirt.

All work begins and ends with the Hands."

About the Artist

Matthew Donaldson is a self-taught oil painter with a primary focus on figurative work and landscapes. Creating art since he was a child, Matthew has been studying oil painting for the past twenty years. His work evokes a natural tension exploring themes of alienation and isolation. Matthew’s work has been collected by patrons in Toronto, Ottawa, and London Eng. He has shown work in Guelph, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, and now focuses on impressionistic portraits and dark, atmospheric landscapes. Self-taught, he is inspired by artists including Carravagio, J.M.W Turner, and John Singer Sargent. He currently resides in Guelph.

Featured Work

Conquest

18 x 24 inches

Oil on Canvas, 2026

$900

Desperation

18 x 24 inches

Oil on Canvas, 2026

$900

Harvest

18 x 24 inches

Oil on Canvas, 2026