Stanley Donwood – Radiohead’s Go-to Man

By Niall Roeder

Stanley Donwood, aka Dan Rickwood, is the artist behind almost all the Radiohead album artwork. He’s currently in Sydney and has created a multimedia installation at Carriageworks, called In The Panic Room, which involves his work from the past two decades.

Donwood has worked with Radiohead since the 1994, designing the group’s albums and all associated artwork. He and Yorke became friends at university and the rest, as they say, is history.

Donwood describes this installation as a “Punk version of an Iron Age stockade fort”. He continues, “As if it had been built by – I believe the local term is ‘bogans’ – psychotic bogan Iron Age warriors from Australia with loads of corrugated iron. Corrugated iron is almost the national architectural vernacular. It’s everywhere. I love it.”

This is a retrospective exhibit and will be somewhat nostalgic for both Donwood and Radiohead fans alike. The Panic Office, will include artworks from the Radiohead albums OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows and The King of Limbs.

Stanley Donwood: The Panic Office runs at Carriageworks until June 6. Entry free.

Image: “Pacific coast” – Stanley Donwood (album art for Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief) Source http://www.slowlydownward.com/selected-works/