‘The current situation is not encouraging’: Artist David Shrigley On The Need For Art In Schools
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The Turner Prize nominated artist is best known for his consciously rudimentary line drawings and dryly humorous commentary
With Chelsea Arts Festival just around the corner, we’ve caught up with some of the creatives set to take the stage. Chatting to art curator and broadcaster Kate Bryan about their new book How To Art, artist and illustrator David Shrigley will be at Cadogan Hall on 20 September. Olivia Cole meets the Turner Prize nominated artist, best known for his consciously rudimentary line drawings and dryly humorous commentary, to see what he has in store.
Quick On The Draw: In Conversation With David Shrigley
Some of David Shrigley’s answers to my questions could almost work as statements on his prints. ‘If you stick to a routine, the work will start somewhere’ is one. ‘I like lists,’ he says of what he likes to keep close by in his workspace. And what does he need to keep out of his space, whether that’s the studio or his headspace? ‘Seagulls,’ he says. ‘They eat all my dog’s food.’
So, no seagulls inside the beautiful vicarage that is his studio space in Kemptown, Brighton – though the birds often appear in his work, in his menagerie of animals with helpful, or dry, aphorisms. Think seagulls talking about freedom, or seals promising to dive into the ocean to rescue your phone, or dogs explaining they’d like their ball to be thrown again and again…
Shrigley’s distinctive style, which pairs childlike drawings with sophisticated, often acerbic observations, has become instantly recognisable. In 2013, he was nominated for the Turner Prize, and in 2020, recognised with an OBE. In Copenhagen, fans seek out the Shrig Shop for his wares, and the online version is an art world phenomenon that reaches a vast audience. His work is coveted as posters, prints and even tattoos in the shape of his characteristic lines.
While some artists have a neurotic relationship with their workspace, irrespective of their worldly successes, Shrigley believes in a structure, and in turning up. He works 10am to 6pm, however the work is going. ‘I’ll sometimes work from home, but I’d rather work from the studio. The studio is my happy place.’
He has joked that he still paints in the same way he did as a five year old, with his poster colour palette and the flat shapes of his depictions of animals, food and toys. But that sense of playfulness has a real power to it, too. Last year, reacting to the decline in students studying the arts in the UK, Shrigley spearheaded a campaign to get creativity back on the curriculum for children.
Rather than the vogue for prioritising STEM subjects, he argued that kids need STEAM subjects, adding in art. He installed The Mantis Muse (a monumental praying mantis sculpture) at his old college in Oadby, Leicestershire as an emblem of the threat of a narrow approach to education on imagination and creativity.
It’s a cause close to his heart. ‘The current situation is not encouraging, but we must persevere,’ he says. He doesn’t know how to get through to governments, ‘but my strategy is to make more projects that illustrate it.’
As a very young artist, Shrigley worked as a guide at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in his adopted home city of Glasgow. Though no one was paying him much attention as an artist, he used the museum equipment to print guides to his then-unappreciated work. Today, they are collector’s items. ‘Believe in yourself’ is Shrigley’s advice to artists. While he acknowledges that ‘delusion is part of it’, he adds: ‘I’m going to make the work whether I’m self-confident or not.’
Shrigley has created the illustrations for a new book, How To Art by Soho House chief art director Kate Bryan, which demystifies contemporary art so more people can harness its positive effects on mood. From his own ‘happy place’ in the studio, Shrigley is an eloquent advocate for the magic of art for as many people as possible. Education ministers, listen up.
David Shrigley and Kate Bryan are in conversation at Chelsea Arts Festival on 20 September, 1:30pm, Cadogan Hall. Buy your tickets here.
How To Art is published on 18 September (£16.99, Penguin).
