The artist and writer Harland Miller (born 1964) is known for his large-scale, playful reworkings of Penguin book covers. Miller takes much-loved book jackets of classic works by Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Edgar Allen Poe and others as his starting point. By rendering them in oils at poster size with quirky new titles, he transforms them into contemporary, often satirical commentaries on life and literature. Whether ironic, nostalgic, or downright cheeky – Dirty Northern Bastard, by DH Lawrence, or I'm so Fucking Hard, by Hemmingway – the titles demythologise and amuse in equal measure.

Harland Miller is attracted to books as objects – the more battered, stained and lived in the better. 'I remember my parents' Penguin books. For me, they are about nostalgia for a by-gone era – that musty smell, those coffee-mug rings, the often heart-breaking inscriptions on the inside cover.'

Miller has lived and worked in New York, Berlin, Paris and London. Born in the North of England in 1964, Miller's fondness for the drizzle and grimness of those northern towns remains a strong theme in his work. 'I suppose mine is a very English sense of humour,' he says.

In this rare display of his watercolours and drawings, Miller's Penguin covers are closer to still life studies, rather than two-dimensional posters. Experimenting with different paper sizes and angles, he occasionally shows their spines, and the shadows they cast. It is a celebration of books as treasured objects. His drawings – in particular his studies for his large-scale oil paintings with their notes scribbled down the margins – are some of his most intimate works to date.

Group exhibitions include Fools Rain, ICA, London, 1996, Direct Painting, Kunsthalle, Mannheim, 2004, Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005, 2006, and The Sculpture in the Close, Jesus College, Cambridge, 2013. Solo exhibitions include Don't Let the Bastards Cheer You Up, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2009, The Next Life's On Me, White Cube Hoxton Square, London, 2012, Wherever You Are Whatever You're Doing This One's For You, Reflex Amsterdam, NL, 2013, and Tonight We Make History (P.S. I Can't Be There), Blain|Southern Berlin, DE, 2016.