‘A lot of my work has this insane anxiety about it’: David Shrigley on worrying, God and drawing like a five-year-old

He has been shortlisted for the Turner prize for his acerbic, often hilarious images. Now living in the countryside with his wife and dog, the artist has produced a new book – and his work is as tense and restless as ever

Cool young artists are talking about their work. “I don’t actually do the paintings myself,” says a man in a stripy jumper. He gets a bunch of kids to do them for him. A woman wearing thick lipstick and holding a cigarette describes her practice: “I use a lot of found materials in my work. My latest piece is 50 identical pairs of children’s shoes which I found in a charity shop.” Another artist tells how he bought soiled underpants from “dossers” for his latest show, while a battered youth goes around bars at the weekend and starts fights to “get my head kicked in while a friend of mine videos it”.

David Shrigley drew this in the mid-1990s. It is a devastatingly precise satire of the Young British Artists scene. It was funny then and still is. When he drew it, Shrigley had recently graduated from Glasgow School of Art with a 2:2 degree – a humiliation he can’t forget – and was working as a guide and art handler at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts.

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