David Shrigley (1968-)

David Shrigley is a British artist shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2013. He grew up in Leicester and did an art foundation course at Leicester Polytechnic before going to Glasgow School of Art and now lives in Glasgow.

Shrigley works in a lot of different media including photography, books, sculpture, animation, painting and music. He is probably best known for his child like drawings which combine image and text.

Shrigley says of his own work : “ Everything should be humorous on some level. Every part of our understanding of the world needs to be a humorous one” and “ I would say I tend to keep the things that surprise me and chuck the things that don’t”.

David Shrigley, Headless Drummer (2012).

David Shrigley has said that he thinks that the best way to look at his drawings is in books. Here is an example of one of Shrigley’s books called “Why we got the sack from the museum”. 

David Shrigley, I'm Dead (2010)

Shrigley has said that his influences are Philip Guston , Raymond Pettibon and Rene Magritte.

Other people have compared his work to Jean Michel Basquiat and I can see the similarities to Shrigley’s drawings.

What the critics say about the Turner Prize and David Shrigley :-

“Why David Shrigley should win this year’s Turner Prize. This week editor Rob Alderson reflects on the Turner Prize nominees and nails his colours to the mast of who he wants to win.

When this year’s Turner Prize nominees were announced, Guardian art critic and former Turner juror Adrian Searle was quick to set out his stall. “A world-class artist in the way that the others are not, the bottom line is that (Tino) Sehgal is already the winner.”

His article ran with the following introduction. “The deviser of unsettling public encounters is a world-class artist in a way that the other contenders – Laure Prouvost, David Shrigley and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye – are not.”

Elsewhere though, it’s the inclusion of David Shrigley that has provoked the most discussion. Within minutes of the shortlist being unveiled, my Twitter feed included a passionate hope that he is named the winner come December, and an equally bombastic plea that he is not. The latter Tweet came from someone who works within the arts and design industry, the former did not.

I wrote a piece back in October that called on the Turner Prize to be more open about their criteria but the inclusion of Shrigley moves this debate on a bit.

Maybe it’s the fact that his wildly popular show at The Hayward Gallery was such a mainstream success that some turn their noses up at the Glaswegian master of surreal silliness. But while I enjoyed being unsettled by Tino Seghal’s Tate Modern performance piece – where a flock of people, ran, danced, played and approached you for whispered, random conversations – and I am a big fan of Laure Provost, Shrigley is my clear winner.

And it’s precisely because he gatecrashed the mainstream consciousness that I want him to win. In the past the Turner Prize has revelled in flagging up lesser-known exhibitions and has done it well. But sometimes the shortlist has smacked of a certain kind of snobbery. Shrigley’s show was joyous, funny, thought-provoking and tackled that hoary idea of what art is. To do all this and have them queueing round the block is certainly “outstanding” in my eyes.”

Because I have not seen any of Shrigley’s books or exhibitions I have found it quite difficult to respond to his work. However, when I viewed his animation ‘Headless Drummer’ (2012) on the internet I instantly did like it and found it humorous. Since re visiting the animation it has not had the same impact.