David Shrigley
Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2013 and creator of an oversized thumbs-up for Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth in 2016, Shrigley is a staple of 21st century British visual culture. His deadpan sensibility, irresistible sense of humour and joyous embrace of the petty absurdities of contemporary life have made him one of the nation's most sought-after artists. In addition to his work as a painter, illustrator and sculptor, he is also a noted photographer, filmmaker and poet. His bold and brilliant prints make a splash in any collection.
Shrigley was born in Macclesfield in 1968 and studied at the Glasgow School of Art between 1988 - 91. He later recalled that "I thought my degree show was brilliant...but the people who were marking it didn't." Before becoming a full-time artist he took a job at the city's Centre for Contemporary Arts, where he used the gallery's equipment to self-publish books of his drawings.
Much of his artistic philosophy can be traced back to the Dada movement of the early 20th century. A response to the destruction wrought by the First World War, this school of art rejected the logic and aestheticism of modern society and embraced nonsense, irrationality and humour. Shrigley has spoken of identifying with the "otherness" of its thought process. The hand-rendered, sometimes crude execution of his images and the distinctive narrative that accompanies them poses existential questions about the nature of contemporary art and its audience. Under his treatment the certainties of daily life become slippery and can be flipped on their head without warning.
In the past two years Shrigley's work has performed exceptionally well at auction, with several of his prints consistently exceeding their estimates, often by large margins. He has cemented his place amongst the major figures of contemporary art and his prints are in high demand.
His work is held by numerous major museums across the world. Examples can be found in the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Tate, London; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Foundation, Vienna; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
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