David Shrigley Interviewed by Lindsey Johnson, March 2006 |
If you've picked up the Triptych brochure, and seen the careless, somewhat menacing, doodle-like drawings that resemble those of a slightly disturbed eight-year-old adorning this year's programme, they may have seemed familiar to you. David Shrigley is the name you're looking for. He is an artist whose distinctively messy, anarchic, absurdist style is recognisable even to those who couldn't name him, be it from one of the umpteen books he has published, or the Blur promo he created for 'Good Song'. He is one of the best examples of an artist who makes you rethink your definition of Fine Art, the kind that divides opinions. Each drawing acts as a small reminder of the darker side of the everyday things, extracting human flaws, doubts and insecurities and encouraging us to laugh cruelly at them, out loud. Although he says that he is not misanthropic and just thinks people are 'a bit stupid.' His work walks an irreverent line between humour and melancholy profundity. It is the visual equivalent of writing on a post-it note something you would not say out loud. Shrigley graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1991, in Environmental Art, and is remarkably tall, and remarkably sweet and wholesome-looking, although perhaps this is only remarkable if you've seen some of the stuff his pen comes out with. Last year he was contacted three times in the space of a few months by a freelance journalist who wanted to interview him about who decorated his house and where he got his kitchen implements from. Taking my cue from the fact that he was only gracious enough to humour her twice, and the fact that this is not Homes and Gardens, I ignored his (very nice) kitchen, and proceeded straight to questions about art... He describes the process of working as; "Like lifting a jug and just letting the water pour out." When I ask if his drawings are as spontaneous as they look, he says; "I suppose I just do it. Because that's what I do. I just sit down and see what comes out. I do have a sort of strategy, but it's very much just to do it intuitively and find the right starting point." Apparently, people always ask him if he's strict with himself about working everyday. He usually lies, and says yes, but tells me that if I hadn't come round he'd probably still be in bed. But as it's only 11am, and I probably would be too, I don't think we can judge too harshly. When he's giving himself the day off he "just kind of wanders around," and maybe goes to a record shop, and while a discussion of what records he might buy doesn't lead to much, he's pretty excited about blagging Triptych; "I kind of assume I can see everything, but I haven't broached the subject." He'd really like to see Aphex Twin, who he first saw; "in a club years and years ago, and it sounded like the PA had broken, and it was a really weird set," although he claims to be; "very suspicious of laptop performances. They might just be playing back a recording. I'd like them to be using some kind of motor skills in order to make the music." Shrigley worked with his friends Shynola on his promo for Blur in 2003, and also made one for Bonnie Prince Billy's 'Agnes Queen of Sorrow' in 2004, but has little interest in working on more music videos. Although he says he might make an exception for The Rolling Stones; "I think my drawings look a bit like they do now." "When these things arise you get quite flattered, and you always think 'Well, they're gonna have some money aren't they', so I can do something quite elaborate. But I think when you do something like that in a certain style, you can't do it anymore after a certain point. I'd like to do some other things in terms of film, but I'm not sure if pop promos are the right vehicle for certain things. The people that work at record companies are a)unimaginative and b)stingy." He has previously listed his influences as including The Fall, graffiti, human conversation, Joseph Conrad, and the social sciences, and says that he is probably more influenced by literature than by art. "But that's not to say that I don't like art. There's a difference between things that you like, and things that you're influenced by." So what does he like? "I like the internet, and I like radio, and television, and film, and literature, and music." Text features strongly in his work, adding meaning to the drawings, and he has been writing scripts 'albeit very short ones' in the last few years, since getting involved in making animation, but has no plans to write anything longer. "I think it's quite a leap from what I do. I feel that somehow I'd be found out, for not being a very good writer. So I just keep writing in my own handwriting, which makes it excusable." He reads a lot, and has recently started getting into poetry; "I quite enjoy poems. I never studied poetry or anything like that, because I went to art school. Any idiot can go to art school." His take on his education there is that; "Teaching Fine Art is a bit like psychotherapy. It's one on one tutorials and it's all "What did you do that for?" It's essentially a practical subject masquerading as an academic one. It's an odd subject to study, it kind of teaches you to do whatever you want." He always wanted to go to art school, but; "I didn't really even know that you could be an artist. I think even when I left art school I didn't imagine that I would actually be the kind of artist that shows at museums and sells their work and drinks wine at openings." He claims that all that happened by accident, as did the publication of his many books, which have made the format of his work as accessible as the content. "I enjoyed being at art school, but I wasn't very popular with the tutors and I didn't get very good marks really. So when I left I didn't really think it was possible for me to be an artist and I decided to be a cartoonist. So deciding to publish in books was a way to disseminate my wares, and then I realised I actually enjoyed making the books. Very quickly they were no longer a means to an end, they were a reason in themselves. I really like the democracy of books." His decision to stay in Glasgow after graduating was based simply on the fact that; "I've always really liked it. I grew up in Leicester, which isn't a very interesting place. When I came to Glasgow in 1988 it was quite different then. It was a big, dirty city, and it had a faded grandeur to it. To my eyes it seemed like a really exotic place, just visually very different to where I was from." When he tells me that in the 1970s, before "everything was smartened up and covered in steel and glass and cappuccino foam", post-industrial Glasgow was seen as a very unsafe city "full of nutters running about with knives", I comment that a lot of people in Edinburgh would probably say that it still is. "Edinburgh's always had the tourist thing, it's always had the castle, it's always had the Queen walking about the place. Glasgow has reinvented itself." He may not have picked up the accent, but he's got the civic pride down. Shrigley's next big project is coming up with the goods for the record deal he's just signed, another thing that was apparently 'accidental'; "It's just a bizarre project. I was asked to do a spoken word thing for some compilation album, and then they were like "do you want to do a whole album?" So I've just bought a little home studio. I've got a little mixing desk and a really good mic, and I've got them in the bedroom because it's got carpet, and I put a mattress up against the window and record my stuff in there." So would he do his own promo video? "I think it'd be nice to get someone else to do it actually, just to see. David La Chapelle or someone would be funny." Artist, musician, film-maker... is there anything else he would like to do that he hasn't done yet? "What like bungee jumping or parachuting or something? People always ask what would you be doing if you weren't an artist, and I always say a psychiatrist or whatever, and they say "oh yes, very interesting, write that down, relate it to your work" but I think actually I'd quite like to be an actor. Not that I'd be any good at it. If I wasn't an artist I'd be an unsuccessful actor." |