Artist and writer Harland Miller’s polychromatic and graphically vernacular paintings and works on paper are informed by an approach to language drawn from his early life in the North of England. Miller’s work synthesizes references from both high and low culture, spanning literature, music, self-help manuals and medieval iconography. Attesting to his engagement with the narrative, aural and typographical possibilities of language, Miller says ‘People read before they can stop themselves, it’s automatic. Words are a way into what you’re looking at, but no matter how integrated the text is, no matter how much you might think it’s synthesized into the work, there is this imbalance in terms of how much the words are doing as words.’

The artwork belongs to the artist's Letter painting series, which present mono or bi-syllabic words and acronyms. Inspired by illuminated manuscripts, the works make reference to the vernacular signage and motifs of artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Ed Ruscha, bringing a Pop sensibility to the lettering of medieval monks. Through a process of isolating, overlaying and reconnecting, the images gain a three-dimensional quality, by which the meaning of language is deconstructed and abstracted. In the works on paper, the artist exposes the tension between words as carriers of meaning and as graphic shape - each letter jostling to find their space within the limits of the paper, sometimes pushed to the edge of readability. The graph paper pages start by lying in the studio whilst Miller paints, acquiring spontaneous splashes of colour, that over time capture the range of the artist's palette.

Harland Miller was born in Yorkshire, UK in 1964 and studied at Chelsea School of Art, graduating in 1988 with an MA. He lives and works between London and Norfolk. Solo exhibitions include All Night Meteorite’ (2023) White Cube West Palm Beach, ‘Imminent End, Rescheduled Eternally’ (2022-23), White Cube Bermondsey, London; ‘The French Letter Paintings’ (2021), White Cube Paris; ‘York, So Good They Named it Once’ (2020), York Art Gallery, UK; White Cube Hong Kong (2019); ‘One Bar Electric Memoir’ (2017), White Cube Mason’s Yard, London; ‘Tonight We Make History (P.S. I Can’t Be There)’ (2016), Blain|Southern, Berlin; Somerset House, London (2016); ‘In Dreams Begin Monsters’ (2015), Palacio Quintanar, Segovia, Spain; ‘Sculptures in the Close’, Jesus College, Cambridge, UK (2013); ‘Wherever You Are Whatever You’re Doing This One’s For You’ (2013), Reflex, Amsterdam; ‘A Decisive Blow Against If’ (2013); Other Criteria, London; ‘The Next Life’s On Me’ (2012) White Cube Hoxton Square, London; ‘On Overcoming Optimism’ (2012), Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; ‘Penguin Series’ (2012) Galleria Marabini, Bologna, Italy; ‘Have You Ever Stopped to Wonder Why You’re Not Here’ (2011), LAB Art, Beirut; ‘Summer Exhibition’, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2005, 2006, 2007); Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany (2004); and Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1996). In 2008, Miller curated the group show ‘You Dig The Tunnel, I’ll Hide The Soil’ at White Cube and Shoreditch Town Hall, London.

"… first record I ever bought was, well, actually, come to think about it, it was Metal Guru by T Rex, but the first album I bought was, well, actually come to think of it, although it was David Bowie, it was Diamond Dogs, not Lodger, on which the track DJ appeared. But it was all part of the same time when buying a record was always an event; highly anticipated even if occasionally disappointing. I’ve bought some terrible records over the years but they've all involved great bus journeys.

It was also something you saved up for, and the promise was in the vinyl itself.

 I am a DJ was a record about records, which really appealed, although I was never sure about the video, which features Bowie smashing up a lot of 45’s. An amount equivalent to about a year’s worth of paper rounds. There was however a memorable scene at the end of the video where Bowie paints the letters D J in bright blood red letters onto a hotel mirror, an act evocative of cheap horror films, it nevertheless simultaneously obscures and defines him, which seemed to me to embody the songs main theme; ‘he was what he played’ which is in fact a scary idea, but there’s also a connection here to both the phrase ‘Sound n’ vision’ and the line “We like dancing and we look divine” The song is the main event and we all follow, we believe. Such is the power of great music and great lyrics.    

Bowie was aware of not just the power of sound but also image - what you see - vision! Beyond making music Bowie also painted, not just on hotel mirrors, but that was the connection I made when I was asked to make a painting for this project.

The DJ work is from the Letter Painting series; paintings of overlapping letters that make short words and anachronisms: ACE, YES, DOA, RIP, OD… DJ is definitely the most positive of these, which I hope, bearing in mind the riff on all the Bowie stuff above, makes it the most appropriate work for this collaboration between War Child, Sound and Vision and from afar, last but not least… David Bowie himself."

The original artwork was specially created for the Sound & Vision Auction (2024), presented by Art on a Postcard in collaboration with War Child.