McQueen’s fictional book covers are made to be read from across the room and inspected up close. The humour is immediate; the painstaking painted illusion is what changes the encounter from graphic punchline to painting.
James McQueen is a British contemporary artist whose paintings imitate the worn covers of imaginary books. Bold titles, distressed surfaces and invented publisher graphics turn each canvas into a fictional cultural object that mixes humour, provocation and nostalgia.
McQueen works under a pseudonym and has intentionally limited the amount of conventional biographical information surrounding his identity. This anonymity focuses attention on the paintings and on the fictional persona implied by the name.
His compositions resemble heavily handled vintage paperbacks, complete with creases, stains, fading, price marks and typographic imperfections. These signs of age are painstakingly painted rather than found. The titles range from sardonic one-liners to phrases about ambition, relationships, money and contemporary behaviour.
McQueen’s paintings and editions have developed a strong market in the United Kingdom and internationally. Their appeal lies in the collision between conceptual trompe-l’oeil, graphic design and instantly readable language: from a distance they appear to be enlarged books; up close they reveal themselves as carefully constructed paintings.
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