The Hayward Study Trip David Shrigley

I was looking forward to viewing the David Shrigley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, I'd experienced some of his sketches and poems online and was eager to see the exhibition. The humour he portrays in his works is often observational and sometimes quite morbid. He brings humour to everyday life occurrences through reflecting emotions, habits, actions, violence and death. His humour is vast and at times inconceivable, however, he aims to surprise just as much as humour his audience and a lot of his work proves very thought provoking.

The exhibition featured a lot of new works by Shrigley and for some reason I found his sketches in particular not as funny, some were, but I felt some pieces lacked charisma in a sense and looked more like text book doodles than interesting artworks. The majority were thought provoking to a degree, but I just think that overtook the humour more than usual. Also, I felt some of the sketches were possibly trying too hard to be funny, they were a bit too random or a bit too plain. Everyone has their own sense of humour so its simply my own opinion, but I have to say I prefer his mass produced greeting cards than his sketches for this exhibition.

The sculpture however I did enjoy, I found his quirky take on scale and the randomness of the objects comical, also its an aspect of his work that I hadn't previously seen. My favourite piece was probably the grave stone, it brings a humorous side to death and after all death is inevitable so why not lighten the mood and see its humorous side. Overall, I did enjoy the exhibitions, I found his art work quirky and a bit different it can be both childish and explicit, intellectual and ridiculous, or funny and vulgar. All round, very entertaining and if I could spend a day inside David Shrigley's brain it would definitely be one to remember.