Rod McIntosh Artist Biography

Rod McIntosh is an artist with his studio in the midst of the English countryside of rural Kent. He works between Kent and London as an exhibiting artist building a national and international profile of his work.


Rod McIntosh studied figurative sculpture in Sheffield, graduating in 1992. He maintained a dynamic practice alongside a successful Arts Management and academic career until 2009 when Rod returned full-time to the studio.
His current work as a mark-maker lies within the tradition of drawing. With his body, the breath along with materials, and repetitive often-obsessive processes, focuses an attention to the present. Observing and recording the moment of creation within a continuum.


He speaks of them as;

“Physical meditations, that offers himself, and the viewer, a moment to pause.”


Process is central within the painting practice of Rod McIntosh. His mark making has a fluidity and honesty that reveals itself through a muted pallet of monotones. This lends the work a striking and minimal appearance, which coalesces with the quiet sensitivity to his materials, time invested and action.


Through rehearsal, the mark-making is an embodiment of a gestural flow with the breath that is privately performed.


For Rod the provenances and particular characteristics of each material are of great importance. Following closely traditional eastern recipes for archival inks and pastes he works upon delicate Chinese papers that absorb every fluid movement as he accepts the brevity of a final committed stroke.


Presence and concentration is key to his practice in cultivating a meditative quality. Examining his temporal gestures, alongside ideas of mindfulness, permanence, attachment and acceptance.