Viva Brighton Issue #63 May 2018

DAVID SHRIGLEY
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© David Shrigley
Still from A Shit Odyssey
of my revenge, because even
if you are good at life drawing
the finished piece is still going
to look badly proportioned.
The joy of the exhibition is
that it encourages people
to make drawings, and not
necessarily feel that they have
to be good at drawing. It’s for
everybody.”
The Festival has always been
an opportunity to open up the
arts to audiences who might
not usually take part, and to
inspire young people to follow
their creative passions. David
talks about the importance
of those early formative
experiences in his own life:
“My family was not interested
in the arts at all,” he says. “I
don’t think I even knew there
was such a career as being an
artist, but I remember going to
see an exhibition at what was
the Tate Gallery - I guess I was
about 14. It was Jean Tinguely,
a Swiss kinetic sculptor, and it
was a really amazing show of
all these machines that he’d
made, which made sounds and
drawings, and for me that was
a real eye-opener. I wanted
to do something like that and
I wanted to make something
like that. It was a real moment
at which I decided, I was
probably never going to be a
professional footballer, I was
going to be an artist.”
“I think my parents were
probably quite disappointed
that I wanted to go to art
school,” he says. “I’m from a
fairly modest background, so
they always felt that working
hard and having a career and
making a living was the most
important thing, and they
couldn’t see how I could
do that as an artist. To
be fair to them, it
never really
occurred
© David Shrigley
to me that I could make a
living either. It turned out
alright in the end.”
So what advice does he have
for this year’s graduating
artists? “Do what you want to
do. A lot of people will tell you
that you shouldn’t pursue this,
but if you’re an artist, whether
you’re a musician or a writer
or a filmmaker, you’ve just
got to do it, and eventually,
somehow, you’ll find a way
of making a living out of it.”
Rebecca Cunningham
brightonfestival.org
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