David Shrigley on Anxiety, Absurdity & Ageing Disgracefully
5/21/202656 min
David Shrigley has spent his life creating art that makes people laugh. He is one of Britain’s most recognisable contemporary artists, celebrated for his deadpan drawings that mix humour, bleakness and childlike simplicity.
Growing up as a shy, introspective child, on a red-brick estate in the suburbs of Leicester, David was happiest alone with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil – fifty years later, not much has changed.
His artworks have an improvised quality, but beneath them lies a surprisingly ordered life.
David talks openly about obsessive tendencies – anxiety, control, and the daily routines that keep him grounded. He works a reliable ten-to-six day, and ticks off each drawing as he goes.
This is a conversation about the compulsion to make things and the human need to make light of life’s absurdities.
A full tour of David’s Brighton studio is available to our Patreon community.
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Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office
Produced by @podshoponline
The full visualised tour of David’s studio is available to our Patreon community.
Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDavid Shrigley· Guest0:00
I was happy as a child with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, and I'm happy as a middle-aged man to be the same, [laughs] you know?
Matt Gibberd· Host0:07
Yeah.
David Shrigley· Guest0:08
So I think that is my default setting. I guess I'm an introvert. I'm quite a shy person, so always been quite happy with my own company, and I think that lends itself to doing what I do. [gentle music] The other thing about comedy is if you start analyzing it, it ceases to be funny. It's almost like you don't wanna look too hard at it and don't wanna analyze it too much, otherwise it really will stop resonating. I'm 57 years old, and I can just do what I like. I think once you've got past 50 it really doesn't matter. You can't be cool anymore. You're not young anymore. Just do whatever you like. It's fine. As long as you don't, uh, do anything that's against the law, it's fine.
Matt Gibberd· Host0:50
[laughs] Hello, and welcome to Homing. I'm Matt Gibberd. Today's guest, excitingly, is David Shrigley. David's a contemporary artist. His drawings and deadpan observations have earned him a big following for their mix of humor, bleakness, and childlike simplicity. David grew up in an ordinary red brick estate in the suburbs of Leicester. As a shy child, he was happiest alone with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, and in many ways not much has changed. His artworks have an improvised