Creative Review Article, 2005

Beyond rain-spattered windows, Glasgow stretches greyly before David Shrigley. He's a tall man, at a guess around 6'5": living on the highest floor of his building, perched atop a steep hill, affords Shrigley a lofty position from which to survey his world.

In his studio the CDs are arranged in a colour spectrum. He says it gives insight into his obsessive nature. He doesn't like it, he adds, when the colours are depleted by excessive borrowing. Fans of Shrigley will know that this compulsion to systematise emerges frequently: applying weird, funny logic to life is how he spends most days. "Lets Wrestle", the title of one of his Redstone published books is like a challenge from Shrigley to join him, as he grapples with the burdens of humanity: addressing fears, phobias, love and cruelty, in admirably absurd style.

He's industrious: "I put the hours in," he says of an average day. "I tend to delegate all the things that aren't really important to somebody else. I try not to look out of the window too much. At about four o'clock I sometimes need a bit of ambient music, so I'll play something by The Fall maybe. Often I'll work on several things at the same time. Sometimes I just sit down and do one piece until it's completely finished. I work very hard, and I think if you work eight hours a day, five days a week, you get a lot done." Having accumulated a pile of drawings, the selection process begins, and the ones that he feels aren't up to scratch? He gestures to the bin: "they get torn up and put in the recycling."

Among the survivors, grim themes regularly arise: death is a favourite. In a piece entitled At The Hospital he observes: "You are liable to be kept waiting for many hours during which time you will contract a drug-resistant plague... the mortuary slab awaits us all." A drawing of a hooded executioner beheading someone, is followed by scenes of him going home on a bus with his axe and being lovingly greeted by his dog. Thus, Shrigley pokes fun at our inevitable demise. He's unsure whether Glasgow's gritty wit is to blame for his own, but he concedes: "There's a dry, gallows humour here, it has a lot to do with the nature of the place: the weather's shit, it's poor... people see there's lots to laugh at."

Famed for silliness, Shrigley tosses in the occasional piece of poetry too: "The silence takes some getting used to, but after a while it's OK. You listen to your heart beating and you listen to yourself breathing and when it rains it sounds deafening." Much of his work seems to stem from the free association that only isolation can generate. Most people though, would be loath to air such private, odd thoughts: "It makes complete tangible sense for me to do what I do, especially because I enjoy it a great deal," he replies. "I want to go to these strange places and surprise myself with my drawings... that's the whole aim of my day."

Shrigley also sculpts, takes pictures, makes short films and pop promos, but he covers most ground with the black and white scribbles. "Recently I've realised I don't really like craft anymore, it's got nothing to do with the things I'm interested in," he states. What things is he interested in then? "Well, I'm not interested in craft basically," he smiles adding, "I don't want to spend long periods of time making things. I like immediacy. I never want to do the same thing twice, although I've got quite a bad memory so I'm sure that I've done the same thing many times."

At the moment, he's making a short film, based on his book Who I Am And What I Want, with director Chris Shepherd. He has no qualms about commercial work, particularly if it helps him learn more about animation. "But what identifies my work is the sensibility behind it, not just the fact that it's a crappy drawing," he observes, "I can't imagine a client wanting to buy into that."

A lot of people do buy into Shrigley though. His books, printed in batches of around 5000, always sell out: "I try to make the work I do as universal as possible. I don't want to make anything culturally exclusive," he says of his broad appeal. At university he was encouraged to place his work in a social context, which is interesting given you can pick up a Shrigley for a few quid. "It's very satisfying for me to have popular appeal," he admits. "Some people spend thousands on my work: some only have to part with £6.95. I'm an artist, I make a living selling art to rich people. But actually, selling a book to people, just a book of funny drawings, is really nice. It shows people like what I do and find it funny and interesting, for me that vindicates my place in the world."