David Shrigley has returned to the school where he first took his first proper art lessons, bringing along a giant praying mantis sculpture.
The Turner-nominated artist was a student at Beauchamp College in Oadby, a town on the outskirts of Leicester, from 1983 to 1987, when he was aged 14-18.
He went on to take the Art and Design Foundation course at Leicester Polytechnic, then completed his education at the Glasgow School of Art – and is now a leading British artist working across different mediums.
Shrigley, 56, is loaning his new sculpture – The Mantis Muse – to Beauchamp College to highlight the role that art plays in education, and to call for greater investment for it in British schools.
The sculpture will be placed on campus for two weeks and used as the focus for a dedicated programme of lessons and activities for students and teachers – from life drawing to nature lessons and yoga classes.
Shrigley said: “It’s always puzzled me that our earliest lessons are based around drawing or painting, yet after a certain age, art is seen as an academic dead-end.
“The message seems to be, those watercolours won’t make you rich, kid, so you’d better learn some coding instead.
“I made The Mantis Muse because I believe that art is a fundamental part of how children learn; whether that’s by doing it, viewing it, or using creativity as a way to explore other thoughts and concepts.
“Schools that lose sight of this and start to treat art as non-essential are depriving students of the rounded education that every child deserves.
“I’m hugely grateful to my old school Beauchamp College for not hanging up the phone when I explained the idea, and for providing the art education that set me on the path for everything I’ve done since then.”
Shrigley told the PA news agency the mantis had been informally dubbed “Maxine” and took around 12 weeks to create.
He said art lessons at the school were when he first formed the idea that he would like a career in art.
“I was quite lucky, I had some really inspirational teachers, ended up going to art school and the rest is history,” Shrigley said.
“One teacher, Chris Tkacz, we tracked him down and did an interview as part of this project, and it was an opportunity just to sort of say, ‘You were a really big influence in my life, and without you, I might not have ended up studying art, might not have ended up being an artist’.
“It was an opportunity to acknowledge my good fortune of being in this place at that time and having that encouragement.”
He added that Beauchamp still has encouraging teachers who will fulfil the role Mr Tkacz did, and he hoped he could act like a “teaching assistant”, with the work helping to inspire new talent.
The Mantis Muse is a three-metre tall sculpture made from steel and fibreglass. It uses a mechanical system to rotate the insect’s head.
A praying mantis was chosen partly to highlight the decline of insects in the climate crisis – which he described as being important but forgotten creatures – but also because they are the “coolest insect”.
Shrigley said the piece intentionally echoes his 2012 David’s Life Model installation, which was displayed at the Turner Prize in 2013.
Last year, it emerged that the number of children studying for an art GCSE in England, Wales and Northern Ireland had dropped by 47% since 2010.
Over the same period, enrolment for art A-levels declined by 29%.
Shrigley said he hoped The Mantis Muse would spark a national conversation about the importance of the arts in schools and urged the Government to safeguard arts education for future generations.
“There’s been a huge decline in students taking A-level art,” he said.
“The conversation is really about art being a vital part of education, you need to have creative subjects as part of a balanced education.
“Art and the arts are the only subjects that give kids agency within their education, (where) they set their own path and get to be really creative.
“That skill is really important – it’s important in engineering, for example, to be able to think creatively to set your mind to problem-solving.”
Shrigley added he would welcome speaking with Government ministers about the importance of art in schools.
Alice King is associate principal of Beauchamp College, which has almost 2,200 students aged from 11-18.
“It was an absolute privilege to welcome David, one of our distinguished Beauchamp College alumni, and witness how his success has sparked inspiration among our current students,” she said.
“At Beauchamp, art and design hold a prominent place in our curriculum alongside traditional academic subjects, offering students a broad spectrum of experiences that help shape their future paths.
“While our art and design department is already equipped with outstanding facilities, David’s striking sculpture of a giant praying mantis, which has taken centre stage this week, has brought an added sense of excitement and energy to both students and staff alike.
“David sits among an impressive Beauchamp ‘Hall of Fame’ which has seen many former students gain huge success in the arts, theatre and music, of which we’re very proud.”
Shrigley works across drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, animation and print.
His drawings and texts are typically deadpan in their humour and often reveal snippets of overheard conversations.
Themes in his work, which has received international acclaim, include two-dimensional views of the world, the perspectives of aliens and monsters, and eavesdropping.
The artist, who was awarded an OBE for Services for Visual Arts in 2020, has works in collections including Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Britain in London, and the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen.
