HARLAND MILLER, LOVE CONQUERS NOTHING, PENGUIN PRINTS, SIGNED DIGITAL PRINT, EDITION OF 35, 2011
Love Conquers Nothing, produced in 2011, highlights Miller’s satirical, slightly cynical humour and Abstract Expressionist influences running through his emblematic Penguin series. These clever works are based on the familiar cover format of Penguin books, authentically replicated in their rugged, second-hand finish by Miller through applying layers of paint onto an original digital photograph. The Penguin series is a fascinating exploration of the disconnect between representation and reality through Miller’s manipulation of his invented titles of these reimagined books by colour-coding them with various backgrounds. The titles can be characterized as “wittily deadpan, punkish and aphoristic” as novelist Michael Bracewell said.
Love Conquers Nothing is shown against a rich, dark-toned background resembling an abstract painting with the black paint dominating, dripping down over the magenta and yellow. This gives the text a pessimistic, even nihilistic air, demonstrating Miller’s skill of coding language through colour and image. It marries a variety of Miller’s important influences including his love for language and literature and visual traces of Pop Art, Colour Field and Abstract Expressionism and artists Anselm Kiefer, Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha and Mark Rothko. In this piece the juxtaposition between the nostalgia and sentiment evoked by the familiarity of Vintage Penguin Classics and the quasi anti-romantic, disillusioned title strikes as especially powerful.
Read more about Penguin prints by Harland Miller.
ABOUT HARLAND MILLER
Harland Miller is a British writer and artist, born in Yorkshire in 1964, best known for producing a series of paintings based on Penguin book covers, including International Lonely Guy and Fuck Art Let’s Dance. Miller’s work explores the relationship between words and images. His paintings, sculptures and mix-media artworks combine the two to comment on the frequent disconnect between representation and reality. Learn more about Harland Miller.
