Product Details

Original water based painting on paper by Stacey Dressen McQueen, signed.

Unframed Size Approx: 229 x 152mm / 22.9 x 15.2cm / 9 x 6 inches

Framed Size Approx (for Oak, Black, Putty Frame Choices): 329 x 252mm / 32.9 x 25.2cm / 13 x 9.9 inches

Framed Size Approx (for White Frame Choice): 337 x 260mm / 33.7 x 26cm / 13.3 x 10.2 inches

Date of Artwork: 2025

FRAME CHOICES: Oak with mount, Putty wood with mount, White wood with mount, Black wood with mount

Please note: Our framers are recognised by the Fine Art Trade Guild for their quality because the custom frames have tightly pinned corners, and are made from precision cut wood in England, made bespoke for each order. All our frames are glazed with our Clarity+ Perspex. It's cut from the highest quality acrylic sheet that's both crystal clear, but also safe and filters out 99% of UV light to protect the artwork.
Read more about our FRAMING WORKSHOP here

STORY

Stacey Dressen-McQueen is a painter we have long admired, and over the past year we have been excited to see the new work emerging from her studio, exclusively for The Shop Floor Project.

The Playroom, which includes some of Stacey’s grandest and most ambitious works to date, is inspired by the idea of a room in a grand old house, filled with games, toys and theatres. A room for play and imagination, where folk art dolls mix with 18th-century games such as Mother Goose and tales of Red Riding Hood.

With the skill of a miniaturist, Stacey paints with the most extraordinary detail. Follow the paths and meet hundreds of characters, including a giant cat and Mother Goose flying over a tiny village. 

The paintings create a kind of imaginary landscape, like a map the dolls and toys have made on the floor when no one is looking; when the clock in the playroom strikes midnight, everything comes alive.

Stacey’s work is a rich tapestry of references; from the ‘scrapbooks’ of the 19th century with their strange sense of composition and scale…

… and 17th-century floral textiles and hand-painted wallpapers.

(Above: an 18th-century Indienne textile with flowers and foliage. Image: St. Gallen Textile Museum, Inventory No. 25533)

(Above: Detail from The Path, Stacey Dressen-McQueen, 2026)

In works such as Mother Goose, The Path and Red Riding Hood, Stacey has explored early board games with their narrative and map-like structure. The Game of the Goose is the earliest commercially produced board game after Francesco de Medici first gifted the game to Philip II of Spain between 1574 and 1587, and the pastime quickly spread in popularity throughout Europe. 

(Above: Game of The Goose, British Museum 1893,0331.50, 1893,0331.83. Laurie's New and Entertaining Game of The Golden Goose, The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1893,0331.83)

We are guided around each piece by the roll of a dice; numbers and animals offer us clues, taking us to mysterious vignettes and nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty, Little Bo Peep, The Cat and the Fiddle and Little Miss Muffet.

In the painting Riders, we are taken to a kind of floating dollshouse, bursting with activity. Under the house, in the earth, vegetable people are dressed for shopping, and inside the house, people are getting ready for bed and playing the piano.

The Tea Party was inspired by the street parties held up and down the country during the 20th century to celebrate the end of the First World War, coronations and such.

Stacey stacks the ‘streets’ vertically in this lively scene, crowning the party with a giant Victoria sponge cake, under which someone seems to have fallen asleep, while strawberries fall from the sky.

A basket full of mushrooms has been brought to the party, and a horse and carriage rush along the table.

Raised on a farm in South Dakota, Stacey Dressen-McQueen moved to the Pacific Northwest to pursue a career in children's book illustration. In 2003, Boxes For Katje, Stacey’s first book, was published, which Publishers Weekly named Best Children’s Book of the Year and praised as “an outstanding debut”. Stacey has since gone on to illustrate six more picture books and has won many awards and honours for her work.

As her work developed, she moved into painting, carrying through this deep interest in old children's books, stories, dolls, textiles, and folk art.

“When I start a painting, I can get lost in the mark-making, so that can take me some distance, just moving paint. Sometimes the original thought lasts until the end; many times it is layered over and completely altered. I have learned to love that meandering process, trusting it will end up somewhere that was worth the trip.”