James McQueen Shit Happens | 1/1 For Sale

James McQueen paints under a pseudonym, working publicly under this name since 2017 so that his art can be judged on its own terms rather than through the lens of personal recognition. His practice grew from a lifelong fascination with vintage book design, first cultivated as a child through his grandfather's extensive library. Rather than being drawn to the stories themselves, McQueen found himself captivated by the graphic language of the covers — their typography, colour and worn, handled surfaces — and this fascination eventually developed into a signature body of painting built around vintage Penguin Classics covers.

Each canvas is produced through a labour-intensive, tactile process. McQueen builds up multiple layers of paint in varying colours and tones, then, once dry, sands the surface back so that fragments of the underlying layers remain visible. The work is finally sealed in lacquer, which lends the finished painting a heightened depth and chromatic richness reminiscent of the patina found on well-loved, decades-old paperbacks. The effect is a surface that reads as both aged and vivid, echoing the life a genuinely old book might have accumulated through years of handling.

McQueen's engagement with mass-produced, everyday design places his work in direct conversation with Pop Art, particularly Andy Warhol's use of inexpensive commercial packaging as subject matter. Where Warhol drew on his own contemporary visual culture, McQueen appropriates objects published before he was born, using their typography and cover art as a vehicle for wit, wordplay and, in later works, social commentary. A recurring monkey-in-a-hat motif, introduced into his paintings from 2021 onward, has become a personal signature within the series — described by the artist as a mischievous stand-in for himself. Across originals, unique works and limited edition silkscreens, McQueen's paintings sit at the intersection of graphic design, nostalgia and contemporary Pop sensibility.