He is one of Scotland's best known figurative artists, recognised from his emergence as a 'New Glasgow Boy' in the 1980s as a painter of people and figures in real or colourfully imagined settings.

But now Adrian Wiszniewski, the Scottish painter who has this week opened an extensive new exhibition of his work at the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh, is embarking on new artistic mission - to paint landscapes without people at all.

The Open Eye show, entitled The Night Gardener, features colourful paintings with figures, and they may be the artist's last paintings for while in this style - known for such figurative work, he is leaving painting people behind for a new set of works inspired by journeys in rural Scotland and New Zealand.

The works, to be shown in Glasgow in November, will be free of people, he said and represents a "new thread in my work."

He has, with the aid of a Creative Scotland grant, toured New Zealand and is to travel the West Highland Way to find inspiration.

Wisniewski said: "I will do a volume of work, and they will all be of landscapes, with no figures in them, so that's an exciting thing to do.

"They will be empty of people. I did about 120 drawings in New Zealand in spring last year, and I hope to go back.

"I've already done some big paintings, so landscape is an exciting thing.

"I'm interested in why Scottish landscape painting looks the way it does, because these things didn't happen in isolation - it involved the politics of the day, too."

The artist said the change was inspired by his involvement in a charity walk.

He said: "I started walking a couple of years ago, for the Caledonian Challenge, and we had to train, and once we walked up this mountain, we were looking out over Loch Katrine, with a viewpoint very similar to that of [the 19th century Scottish landscape painter] Horatio McCulloch," he said.

"I had never really seen landscape in that way before.

"All my previous excursions into landscape and been not in Scotland, being driven somewhere, or a boat ride around Loch Katrine or something like that.

"I am interested in landscape as an art form now, looking at it with fresh eyes."

Wiszniewski's new exhibition in Edinburgh is entitled The Night Gardener and features more than 30 works, most in oil, and is on show until May 8.

It features, like much of his work, images of people, in this exhibition set in brightly coloured landscapes, featuring exotic flora and fauna.

The Open Eye Gallery said that its "environment of huge, threatening plants painted in liquid, luminous colours of red, orange and yellow, the world appears out of kilter and in a state of decay.

"Interlacing both classical and contemporary iconography, the exhibition presents a garden of unearthly delights, full of theatrical moments and private discourses."

The artist, who is based in Renfrewshire, said: "I have used oil and pen, even felt tip pen - there are these great colours that you get, you can use it like water colour.

"It is one of my biggest shows for a while, I do work a lot."

He added: "In the way that an archaeologist scratches and brushes in the hope of revealing a hidden treasure I scratch and brush in the hope of revealing a hidden truth. This is how I generally work."

Wiszniewski has experimented with different forms before: he has written a novel and a film script, and worked with ceramics, murals and sculpture.

Born in Castlemilk, Glasgow, in 1958 he trained in architecture before deciding to study fine art at Glasgow School of Art (1979-1983). Along with Ken Currie, Peter Howson and Steven Campbell, he was regarded as a leading figure in a revival of figurative painting in Scottish art.

This group became known as the New Glasgow Boys after they were selected for a show entitled A Vigorous Imagination at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art.

Wiszniewski was awarded the Lord Provost’s Medal from the City of Glasgow in 1999 and his work can be found in many international collections around the world.