Paintings
12 works
James McQueen Book Spines | Pink For Sale
James McQueen
Book Spines | Pink
Acrylic and mixed-media on canvas
152.4 × 101.6 cm
About this work
Book Spines | Pink is a 152.4 × 101.6 cm acrylic and mixed-media canvas in which James McQueen renders his signature library shelf motif in a warm, enveloping pink palette. The work presents a densely packed arrangement of book spines — each one distinct in proportion and implied title — saturated with a colour that brings tenderness and warmth to a subject already associated with the intimacies of reading and collecting. The pink tonality transforms the bookshelf from a cultural record into something more emotional and personal. In the Pink version, the palette unifies the composition while allowing individual spines to emerge with their own character, creating a work of visual rhythm and abundance. The acrylic and mixed-media process allows McQueen to build the painting with layers of material, giving the work a physical presence that rewards close approach. His Book Spines works are among his most visually celebrated, beloved by collectors for their combination of typographic interest, painterly richness, and affectionate subject matter. The pink palette invites readings beyond the purely aesthetic: it suggests the warmth of a well-loved personal library, the domesticity of the bookshelf as object, and the particular feeling of a collection that is actively used and cherished. McQueen's work always operates on multiple levels simultaneously, and Book Spines | Pink is no exception — it is at once a celebration of literature, a formal exercise in colour and composition, and a quietly personal work.
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Edition & Provenance
- Medium
- Acrylic and mixed-media on canvas
About James McQueen
James McQueen Paintings for Sale | Guy Hepner, New York
James McQueen is a British artist born in 1977 whose paintings sit at the intersection of Pop sensibility, material obsession, and dry British wit. He works under a pseudonym, and his identity is secondary to the work — which is the point. What matters is what ends up on the canvas.
McQueen's paintings are built, not simply applied. He works in layers — paint over paint, colour over colour — then sands the surface back to expose what lies beneath, then seals it in lacquer. The result is a depth that photographs struggle to capture. These are surfaces you need to stand in front of.
His subject matter has ranged from reinterpreted Penguin paperback covers to politically charged commentary to the large-scale mixed-media Anthology works now available through Guy Hepner. Across all of it runs a consistent preoccupation: the visual language of mass culture, rendered monumental and unfamiliar by the seriousness of the craft brought to bear on it.
McQueen has shown extensively in London and is represented in significant private collections internationally.
Guy Hepner | 177 Tenth Avenue, New York