Donald Neal was born in 1953. A Belle Glade native, Neal is the son of migrant farm workers who were also artists. Donald Neal is a A natural artist. His first drawing, at the age of five, was a startlingly photographic rendering of his dog. His artistic ability so amazed his elementary school teachers that he was promoted to Palm Beach County's High School of the Arts in fifth grade. He attended The School of the Arts until he was fifteen, when he began to study art at the college level. Donald Neal has always been intrigued by realism in painting and is continuously working to improve on that approach. He started painting on wood long ago because it was more affordable but now he does it by choice because he enjoys working with the texture that the wood has to offer. As part of his technique to develop the "trompe l'oeil" style of painting, he often includes an item that is held on to the painting by a strip of masking tape - except there is no masking tape. Where with most artwork you step back to look, Neal's work makes you want to get as close as possible and touch. Donald wants people to 'look so close you'll need a magnifying glass'. His renditions of other objects are so real that the viewer almost compulsively reaches out to touch it as if to prove to himself that such reality with paint is really possible. Donald approaches a blank canvas with confidence saying he "just starts painting" and the painting takes on a life of its own. "Mistakes" are not to be feared as they usually turn out to be the best part of the work. Donald is accomplished in a plethora of styles and attracted to a variety of subjects, but he has devoted himself, in the past few years, to the human form. He "loves all women" and says, "Every woman I paint eventually turns out to be Eve".