Evoking the sensual, the life-size organic and mechanical forms in Roderick Newlands large paintings hold a deft conversation with the twisted and contorted figures skillfully draughted in his compelling drawings.  Newlands paintings and drawings span a period of 30 years and provide a glimpse into the work of this celebrated artist.

Born in Aberdeen, Newlands graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1978. In 1979 Roderick was awarded a Fellowship to ‘Cheltenham college of Art.’ Roderick has exhibited both nationally and internationally and has exhibited at the Royal Summer Academy shows and Royal Scottish Academy summer exhibitions on a number of occassions. Roderick has won two major awards from the Royal Scottish Academy, the Meyer Oppenheim Prize and a RSA Carnegie Travelling Scholarship and was awarded a Fellowship to Cheltenham College of Art. . He has been based in Norfolk since 1980 lecturing at both Yarmouth and Norwich Schools of Art. He was course leader of the Foundation Studies Department at ‘Norwich School of Art and Design’ (UK) between 1993 and 2006.

The skill and technical brilliance of the artist tells further in his many inclusions into the RA and RSA summer exhibitions.

Like Roberto Matta(D) (who counts a number of Newlands’ works in his collections,) the artist plays with space and light. His family of bold, energized images cut across the featureless backgrounds. References to things past inhabit Newlands’ canvases. Childhood memories of his father, an agricultural engineer, mending ‘monstrous mechanical contraptions’ in a dark barn with only a hand-held lamp for light bring to life the monumentally present figures in his work.  

It is figurative elements that also feature in Newlands drawings. Hands, larger than life and wrung together play with haunted faces, figures scarred and scored and at times Newlands’ pencil works so hard that the paper almost tears. Parts of heads and bodies tease us with their textures, a beard so fine contrasts with a distorted face and heavily worked parts play with those that are just implied.

Newlands is now living in Cyprus (Kissonerga) and has a studio where he continues his practice and is currently lecturing  at 'Stass Paraskos- Cyprus College of Art' on the MA Fine Art course.