XXX art show by Harland Miller opens at York Art Gallery

“We weren’t really encouraged to think about becoming artists in the seventies,” says the now 61-year-old. “Art was something other people would do.”

Miller’s work – huge, bright pop art canvases as part of his XXX show which “doesn’t flout any indecency laws” – are on show in the gallery from Friday (March 14) until August.

“I said I wanted to be an artist to my careers master,” he recalls. “And he said, ‘Have you thought about window dressing?’ That was the only thing he could think of.

“It seemed foolish to fantasise about becoming an artist.

“Rather than this being a dream come true, I would never have dreamt of coming back to York with what are very contemporary paintings.”

Harland Miller with XXX – the centrepiece for his new exhibition at York Art Gallery (Image: Olivia Hemingway) This is his second exhibition at York Art Gallery, following York, So Good They Named It Once – reimagining Penguin book covers – which ran for just weeks before Covid brought it to an abrupt close.

XXX showcases work from his letter writing series – inspired by growing up in York during the seventies and his “itinerant lifestyle” in New York, New Orleans, Berlin and Paris during the eighties and nineties.

Miller takes illuminated letters – traditionally used to mark the beginning of chapters in medieval manuscripts – and blows them up on the canvases in single letters or short words.

One of these words is York.

The city’s name is displayed below bright blue, white and yellow, depicting a Yorkshire Rose or a daffodil. 

“Hopefully that’s what we’re seeing here, not a fried egg,” jokes Miller.

Inspiration for work started while studying in York

He first came across the medieval letters while studying at the York School of Art and thought it was an “amazing and undercelebrated” form of art.

As a teenager, Miller “loved pop art” – and Andy Warhol – and punk.

He incorporated punk’s “trashy and fluorescent” colours into his early letter work – and still uses them today.

Numb by Harland Miller at York Art Gallery (Image: Dylan Connell) His piece called Numb blends purple and yellow – punky “anti-colours” that don’t go together, says Miller.

It was created after his mother died.

“I was trying to work through that,” he admits.

The opening of the exhibition was his first visit to York since his mother’s death two years ago.

“That’s the longest time interval that I have stayed away for.”

Harland Miller with Oh No at York Art Gallery. The scarf’s resemblance to York City is ‘entirely accidental’, he insists (Image: Olivia Hemingway) Another piece – and the largest – is called Oh No and draws from the phrase which can describe “complete Armageddon or burning toast”, he says.

His mother would even say “it’s snowballed into catastrophe and there’s no telling where that will lead”.

Miller has also turned Oh No’s bright red and blue design into a scarf – and its resemblance to a York City kit is “entirely accidental”, he insists.

• XXX by Harland Miller runs from Friday until August 31 at York Art Gallery. Admittance is included with a general art gallery ticket.