Drawing for Roderick is simply the most direct way of communicating ideas.

Roderick prefers cheap working materials, disposable pens and papers not of a grade normally associated with an artistic practice. This avoids the danger of becoming overly precious in his approach. Rather than producing preliminary sketches, with it’s attendant risks of loss of spontaneity, Roderick concentrates on articulating ideas directly in ink.

Whilst the process of taking a photograph remains unfamiliar to Roderick, he acknowledges the influence photographs have on his work, the composition and choice of what is drawn and what is merely suggested.

“ I think photographs also provide me with the impetus to pursue a composition that doesn’t necessarily occur centrally. Much that a photograph invokes in me is a sense of wonder about what hidden activity is taking place out of frame” Roderick Mills.

Recognising that working on paper means he is immediately faced with two dimensions, Roderick feels it important to imply further perspective and consequently his characters can seem engulfed in space. He prefers that the images remain ungrounded rather than cropped tightly. This allows the empty space to create its own tension. Utilising this visual language, Roderick often introduces a random element via the use of the photocopier – trying to echo the rapid image making that a camera achieves with ease. This working process allows some of the unintentional results to provide an element of humour, but rarely does he set out to illustrate something directly.

“I draw around the subject and through this methodology, meet the requirements of the brief” Roderick Mills.

This allows the work to exist on many levels, as a piece of communication but also as something else, which is inexplicable.

Increasingly the work has become multi-layered, combining stencils to offset against the line work, allowing Roderick to develop a colour palette particular to specific reference for the projects. This has enabled Roderick to add further to the meaning of the drawings, generating a richness to the images.

Roderick sees his work as a constantly evolving visual language, drawing upon influences from personal work to develop his commercial practice. His ventures into moving image have also allowed him to explore more complex narratives and abstract visual rhythms, through time-based media. In 2007 Roderick received a Sciart Award from the Wellcome Trust to fund a collaborative project, producing an animation entitled ‘Immortal Stories’, an investigation into the way Cancer is portrayed in the movies. This film toured Worldwide at film festivals and received much critical acclaim. Roderick is now working on his second film with further funding from the Wellcome Trust.

Roderick is also active within education, being a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton and Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins College of Art & Design. Artwork by Roderick can be found in the collection of Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Réserve des Livres Rares.

Clients

Opéra National de Paris
The New Yorker
Volkswagen
The National Theatre, London
World of Interiors
Bloomsbury Books
Workspace
Penguin
The Design Museum, London
Esquire
The Independent on Sunday
New York magazine
Toronto Times
Inc magazine
Technology Review
New York Times
UCLA
Christian Aid
Shell
Pan Macmillan
The Guardian
Royal Mail
The Big Issue

Links