David Shrigley

David Shrigley is a Glasgow based British visual artist whose work includes drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, and animation. The first thing one notices upon examining Shrigley's work is that it is extremely funny. The humor of the work is so great it may compel the view to understand it as something other than fine art, such as a quirky or amateur effort at cartooning. And this might well be true were it not for the overwhelming air of pathos that hangs so heavily about the work. Shrigley's work is an inescapably perfect expression of futility. With such subtlety, such aphoristic brevity Shrigley speaks to defeatism and an almost ontological, definitional sense of hollowness and isolation. All aspects of the work touch us with the breath of the void. The often rough nature of the line work, paired with the jarring presence of straightedge and compass, demonstrate the Kafkaesque rhythm of futility, struggle, and inevitable defeat. The English is broken ad hapless, indeed the work is hapless, the artist himself is hapless, and the world is hopeless. His Website