Photo: Rodney Matthews with two of the models from Lavender Castle. Photo courtesy of Rodney Matthews.
Rodney Matthews is one of Britain's top fantasy artists. An exhibition of his works, Twice Upon A Time: The Art of Rodney Matthews, is on at the Grosvenor Museum in Chester until February 8 2004.
For 30 years Matthews’ illustrations have been published on album covers, posters, books, video games and more recently on television, in Lavender Castle, a children’s animation series he designed.
Throughout his career Matthews has produced nearly 500 colour paintings and about twice the number of pencil drawings.
"God gave me a good imagination, but also I have spent most of my life admiring the wonderful things of the creation, flora and fauna, rock, waterfalls, clouds, landscapes, from large animals, birds and fish down to minute insects," says Matthews on his website.
Photo: Old Man Willow, a limited addition print from Lord of the Rings, 2002 © Rodney Matthews
"I fuse or exaggerate life forms, change the colour expectations, and enlarge or decrease the size of a creature out of context to its environment, but not becoming too abstract, thus retaining believability."
His fantastical scenes have captured the imagination of generations.
On show at the exhibition are the original paintings for book covers, posters based on J R R Tolkein's stories and some of the over 70 album covers painted for bands like Thin Lizzy, Nazareth, Asia and The Scorpions.
There are fantasy game posters, video footage, models from the 26-part series Lavender Castle and early sketches.
On average Matthews says it takes him about a week to produce a small coloured picture, a couple of days for a pencil sketch and up to three weeks for a larger piece. Although he managed to paint On a Storyteller’s Night in ten days under pressure, which he says on his website is one of his favourite pictures.
Photo: On a Storytellers Night, a record cover for Magnum,1985 © Rodney Matthews
From an early age Rodney Matthews was interested in art and fantasy in particular.
When he was only aged three or four his father used to draw Disney characters for him directly on to the sitting room wall. His father's drawings and early films like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland had a profound influence.
From 1960 to 1962 Matthews studied commercial design at The West of England College of Art, Bristol. He then went to work for an advertising agency called Ford’s Creative Ltd.
He flirted with a music career as a drummer, and had his own band throughout the 1960s and early 1970s but he never gave up illustration.
Since 1970 Matthews has worked as a freelance illustrator. Today he has his own company in partnership with his wife.
Photo: Arena, record cover for Asia, 1995 © Rodney Matthews
Twice Upon a Time is a unique opportunity to view the work of one of the best fantasy and science fiction illustrators in the world.
And if you visit the Grosvenor Museum on January 17, 2004 between 2pm and 4pm you may even get a chance to meet the master himself. He will give a talk about his life and work and will be signing books, posters and his new calendar.
The following week, on January 24, 2004 between 2pm and 4pm, Matthews and the producer of Lavender Castle, Chris Bowden, will be giving a talk at Cosgrove Hall, Chester about the making of the series.
