This Sunday, let’s look at the studio of David Shrigley. Shrigley’s works are imbued with a surreal sense of humour, and though often drawn or sculpted in the style of a child’s comics they tend to explore philosophical and existential ideas and trains of thought.

The artist’s studio in, this photo, looks more like a home studio than the spaces of many other artists who create work in their homes. It’s not a specialized space, and it doesn’t have the pristine white walls of a project studio. The somewhat dim lighting, augmented by a number of lamps, combined with the carpeted floors and relatively low ceiling make this seem like perhaps a basement studio in an average detached home. In this way it has a certain, familiar charm to it, and it seems like Shrigley has really carved out the perfect little space for his art-making. Perhaps like other artists who favour a minimalist style of black and white illustration, Shrigley takes an equally unpretentious approach to the creation of his work.

In his set-up I see a drawing board, a number of books, and a huge amount of small jars of ink, in every colour one could possibly imagine. Not to mention what appears to be a white balloon labeled “egg” – perhaps a maquette for a future work?

Shrigley studied environmental art at the Glasgow school of art in the late 1980’s. He has collaborated with a number of bands and musicians, directing music videos as well as letting various artists reinterpret his writings as lyrics. As a cartoon artist, he’s contributed a cartoon to the Guardian’s Weekend Magazine every Saturday since 2005. 

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