EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 21 © 2017 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

3 Rodney Matthews An engagingly distinctive artist whose fantastic paintings are hanging as posters in the rooms of millions of fans, and have graced the covers of many rock albums. Diego Cordoba recently caught up with this fascinating artist. In the world of illustration there are few artists who are immediately recognizable. One of them is British artist RodneyMatthews who doesn’t even sign his paintings. He doesn’t need to, as we can all distinguish him from any other artist. An illustrator by nature, if you’ve never heard of him, it means you’ve never bought a Progressive or Heavy Rock album (or CD) in your life, for he may well be responsible for all the swords and skulls we see on the artwork of those album covers! But seriously, Rodney seems to inhabit a world not far from those created by J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis or Lewis Carroll: a world populated by strange creatures, giant insects, mechanical spiders, exotic plants, fantastic cities, and alien landscapes. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth, as his source of inspiration comes simply from the world around him. FACING PAGE: On a Storyteller’s Night, 1985. Cover for rock band Magnum’s fifth studio album of the same name. Rodney had already done two of their previous covers ( Chase The Dragon and The Eleventh Hour ), included here as paintings beside the chimney in the background. BELOW: For a Year and a Day, 1988. From Rodney’s 1990 calendar: Storybook Collection . His rock interpretation of Edward Lear’s nonsense poem ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’, which was first published in 1871.

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