A Way With Words

British artist Harland Miller is most famous for painting covers of imaginary books. On the eve of his first exhibition in Hong Kong, he tells Oliver Giles of the inspiration behind his new works

You may have been taught not to judge a book by its cover, but that’s exactly what you have to do at Harland Miller’s exhibitions. The British artist and author has spent more than 15 years painting book covers, many of them based on the classic design of vintage Penguin paperbacks. But these aren’t books you can find in a library or bookshop; they’re all the product of Miller’s imagination, complete with funny and sometimes filthy new titles. A navyblue Penguin paperback purportedly by the hypermacho author Ernest Hemingway has been given the title I’m So F**king Hard, while a book by Edgar Allan Poe has been rechristened Wake Up And Smell The Coffin. Other paintings aren’t riffs on the lives of famous writers but imaginary new books by Miller himself, with catchy titles such as Health And Safety Is Killing Bondage, and Death, What’s In It For Me?