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Tristan MacDougall studied Fine Art: Sculpture at Winchester School of Art (2000) where he created modernist and conceptual sculpture and installations. Feeling unfulfilled by his artistic pursuits in the few years following art school, and rediscovering his love for figurative art at the Prince's Drawing School, he saved money from his day job in order to study drawing and sculpture in the classical tradition at The Florence Academy of Art (2005). Although the programme of study in Florence was highly disciplined and demanding it opened a new world to his imagination and sculptural creation.

"At the centre of all my work is a deep love and respect for the tradition of classical sculpture and I seek to bring a fresh voice to this tradition. I am driven by a desire to push my craft to the highest standards of which I am capable, while taking great pleasure in exploring the raw energy of the human form described with the plasticity of clay."

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In 2016 Tristan was commissioned to produce a medal for the British Art Medals Society, his medal Daedalus has been one of the most popular in recent years and a copy was bought by the British Museum. In 2017 he was commissioned to model a pediment frieze, titled The Triumph of Silenus, for a new Temple of Bacchus at Painshill Park in Surrey, which is open for public viewing. In 2019 he was commissioned by the National Trust and Cliveden Conservation to recreate the muses, Polyhymnia, Ourania and Thalia for Stowe landscape gardens.

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Tristan works from his studio in Oundle, on commissions for portraits and figurative sculpture. He is a regular exhibitor at the annual exhibition of the Society of Portrait Sculptors, and in 2018 and 2020 he won the Society’s Olin Award for Bas-relief sculpture. His work is in the British Museum Collection, National Trust at Stowe, American Numismatic Collection and private collections in the UK, across Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan.