As an artist, even if you are putting out something really dark and disturbing, that's good because it's opening a discussion. Always in the back of my mind is this thought that the world has to be a better place with you in it.
Shaun TanI don't get really inspired the way some people do, buzzing with ideas - it feels like hard work to me... but once I get hooked into the universe of a particular work it becomes almost like an aesthetic addiction.
Shaun TanYou discover how confounding the world is when you try to draw it. You look at a car, and you try to see its car-ness, and youโre like an immigrant to your own world. You donโt have to travel to encounter weirdness. You wake up to it.
Shaun TanThere's a sort of absurdity to Australia and the so-called New World nations. I sensed it all the time growing up in Western Australia, which is really remote.
Shaun TanWhat I love about Inuit carving is that it's so narrative, but it doesn't have the temporal dimension of an illustrated picture, where it feels like something happens before or after. Everything is happening in the sculpture, and you can hold the whole story in your hand. A lot of these sculptures are small enough that you can hide them in your hand completely so you're not looking at them, you're just feeling them. I
Shaun Tan