Rodney Matthews

Rodney Matthews (born 6 July 1945 in Paulton, North Somerset, England) is a fantasy artist and illustrator.

In 1978, he published Yendor: The Journey of a Junior Adventurer, a hard-back picture book featuring his distinctive paintings of "The Wild Country", a fantasy world seen through the eyes of young Yendor, named after his son (Yendor is, of course, Rodney backwards). These paintings were accompanied by irreverent and light-hearted text written by Graham Smith, forming an episodic story about Yendor's journey. Despite not featuring any coherent plot structure, this whimsical book achieved cult status amongst fanatics of fantastic art due to Matthew's striking and surreal paintings.

Album covers

Rodney has worked with a number of bands on album covers, the most notable of which is Birmingham melodic rock band Magnum for whom he designed the art-work for Chase The Dragon, The Eleventh Hour, On A Storyteller's Night, and Sleepwalking as well as various compilations and reissues. He also designed album covers for Thin Lizzy, Tygers of Pan Tang (Crazy Nights), Diamond Head (Am I Evil) (Borrowed Time), Praying Mantis (Time Tells No Lies, Predator In Disguise), Nazareth (No Mean City), Scorpions (Lonesome Crow), and Eloy (Metromania and the picture disc for Time to Turn).^[1]

More recently he worked on Magnum's later album, Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow, which was released in March 2007; this is the first Magnum studio album since 1992 to feature his art-work. He has also worked with the rock group Asia. His most recent work to date is on The Immortal, a solo album by Magnum lead singer Bob Catley, released in September 2008.

Book covers

Alongside his album cover work, he has illustrated a number of books and magazines, primarily fantasy and science fiction. He worked on the covers for the Witch World novels by Andre Norton and many of the novels by Michael Moorcock who introduces a section in "In Search of Forever". He also worked as the artistic designer on Gerry Anderson's 1998 TV series Lavender Castle.

He also designed the logos for the video game studios Traveller's Tales^[2] and Bizarre Creations.

Paper Tiger Books have published several art books of Matthews' work, including In Search of Forever (1985), Last Ship Home (1989) and Countdown to Millennium (1997).

He also designed a set of characters that later derived in the animation series "Lavender Castle". The project took several years to come to reality, making some 20 chapters.

In 2010, Rodney designed the illustrations for Marco Palmer's book The Fantastic Intergalactic Adventures of Stanley and Livingston, a fantasy novel aimed for young teenagers, in a world where plumbing is the centre of society. The two have been friends for a number of years. The author, Marco Palmer, is most famous for his past comedy duo act with Rodd Christensen, who starred in the children's TV programme "Balamory".

References

External links

• Official website
• Rodney Matthews at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Rodney Matthews' Gallery on Inside Your ART