Painter who can turn M5 bridges into art

Cityscapes are beautiful to former art teacher Roland Twynam. Here he talks to Cathy Spencer

High rise flats and grey concrete motorway bridges are usually seen as an eyesore.

But to Roland Twynam they are as beautiful as any rural landscape. The 73-year-old from Codsall, near Wolverhampton, was head of art at the city's Northicote School for 21 years.

See more of Roland's work by clicking on the image on the right.

Since retiring in 1990 he has been able to focus on his own projects — which have included painting urban scenes in Birmingham and the Black Country.

Among his most striking paintings is one which took him around a year to paint standing on the fourth floor of Walsall's New Art Gallery catching in great detail the town below.

"I like to go to the art gallery and sometimes I find the view of Walsall from the windows more interesting than the actual art pieces," says Roland, who has three children — Mark, Melanie and Lisa — and five grandchildren.

"My children bought me a big canvas for my birthday and I was looking for something to paint on it and thought the view of Walsall would be perfect."

Roland says that when he first looked out over Walsall he thought the street scene below him was too complicated.

"I decided to give it a go and started off with a tower in the distance and then expanded out from that," says Roland, who lives in Suckling Green Lane with his wife Pauline.

"It took me around a year to paint and I spent a fortnight just doing the cars on the top of the car park.

"I would have loved for it to be installed at Walsall Art Gallery — maybe next to the window where I stood to paint it."

Roland was born in Lea Road, Wolverhampton, and was a pupil at Stonefield Boys School in Bilston before going to Wolverhampton Art College.

He became a teacher but at the of 45 took a year's sabbatical when he went to Birmingham to do a course. That was when he started looking at structures like Spaghetti Junction and seeing how they could be transformed into works of art.

He had a one man exhibition in 1983 at the Old Tettenhall Gallery which was run by Tom Jenkins.

"Most of my industrial landscapes were on display and since then it was a case of painting when I felt like it," he says.

"I know that most people will walk past the things I paint and not think much of them, but I'm looking at light, shade and patterns.

"I did an exhibition once at Villiers Cafe, which used to be in Wolverhampton and was a favourite with the local factory workers.

"They weren't used to seeing art when they went into their cafe but when I went in they asked me lots of questions about the paintings."

Roland is a member of the Wolverhampton Society of Artists and also teaches an art class at Codsall Village Hall on Thursday mornings.

The artist, who works in a range of mediums including acrylic, oil and charcoal, says that he believes art galleries should give more space to local artists.

"There is so much space at Walsall and Wolverhampton art galleries that some of it should be turned over to local artists — an art gallery should belong to the local people," he says.

"I have enough paintings for an exhibition and would love to see what people's reactions are to my work." Local scenes in Roland's work include The Wrekin, which was painted in 1982, Spaghetti Junction in 1983, the cafe at Himley Hall in 2003 and Codsall Station, which was in 2008.

"I did a piece focussing on the supports under the M5 in Oldbury," he says.

"First thing I do is picture in my mind what I want to create and I make notes and initial sketches.

"If the digital camera was around hundreds of years ago it would have been seized on by all the great artists.

"The camera is a great addition but direct observation is really important as a photograph can limit you."

Roland may have spent a year creating his Walsall piece but he says he can spend just an afternoon on a painting. I like to walk up the Wrekin and while there I noticed that you have two view points, which is a not normal and so a real challenge to paint," he says.

"However, I'm quite impatient when I work and I started the piece at 1pm and was finished by 6pm."

Roland says he encourages his students to put their name and the date on all their paintings.

"Paintings are like a record of your life — they are a snapshot of that time," he says.

"However, if you can't look back at your first pieces of art and say they are rubbish, then it means you haven't improved."