THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT DAVID SHRIGLEY
by Electric Gallery
Friday 30 June 2023
David Shrigley is a living legend of the British contemporary art scene. He's a firm favourite of Electric's customers and his work always sells out super quickly. To celebrate the release of a new set of Shrigley prints - see here - we've rounded up some things you should know about this brilliant Scottish artist.
1. He installed a massive golden thumbs-up sculpture in Trafalgar Square in 2016. It was on show for almost two years. Ironic for someone who advises any aspiring artists to just "pretend you've never been to art school."
2. If you’re a massive Shrigley fan you can book a table at London restaurant Sketch where 245 of his works hang on the walls. They're mostly black and white and he still updates them periodically.
3. As a young artist Shrigley scraped a living selling photocopied books of his sketches to punters in his local pub for £3.50 a time. They’re now worth thousands! He has worked in all sorts of mediums - sculpture, taxidermy, neon, large scale installation, paper and ink, oils, the lot. He even once participated in a book/art project for a self help book called "How Are You Feeling"
4. Shrigley has produced music videos and even released a spoken word album called Shrigley Forced To Speak With Others. We've never actually listened to it, but we bet it will be dry and funny and idiosyncratic.
5. David Shrigley was awarded the OBE in 2020 for services to art. The campaign for a knighthood starts here, right? Step forward Sir Shrigley!
6. He has designed the floor of the swimming pool in the new Soho House in Brighton. It’s covered in banana motifs. David was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1968 but has lived in Brighton for many years. We hope the bar staff at Soho House serve him cut-price Picantes in return for his pool-based artworks!
7. He once did a video listing five things you didn't know about him. He then did 7 Things and at least some of them are completely made up. Here it is!
