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Shaun Tan, award-winning Australian illustrator, shares insights on what makes a good painting, his life in Brunswick, and the fine line between utopia and dystopia.
Shaun Tan, one of Australia's most celebrated and awarded picture book illustrators, lives quietly in Brunswick West with his artist wife Inari and their French bulldog Reuben. His 2006 wordless graphic novel The Arrival won the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, and he won an Oscar for the film adaptation of his picture book The Lost Thing. Born in Perth to a Chinese Malaysian father and Australian mother, Tan is a master of surrealist suburban fantasy whose books explore alienation, diaspora, and the fine line between utopia and dystopia.
Early Life and Artistic Beginnings
Tan took to illustration early, though he did not initially understand how central it would become to his existence. He attended a specialist art high school in the Perth suburb of Balcatta, where he developed the basic artistic skills he still uses today. I learned most of my basic artistic skills that I use today in high school, he says. I do not think I have had any formal illustration training since then.
He was successful early, winning the L Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future award straight out of high school, and eventually the Hugo award, science fiction's greatest honour. Tan does not subscribe to the concept of born talent, preferring a mantra of grit and repetition. I had an interest. And I think interest is talent because it keeps you doing the thing, and a thousand hours later, you are actually better at it, he says.
Creative Process and Inspirations
In person, Tan is a perfectly ordinary, softly spoken middle-aged man in a puffer jacket and faded black denim jeans. He describes himself as not creative in day-to-day life. But when he sits down to draw, it is like a moment to pause and question: what does all this mean? And how come I live like this and not another way?
These existential questions haunt his picture books, which often deal with themes of alienation, diaspora and the fine line between utopia and dystopia. Just how much of his work is intended for children is difficult to judge; dark in tone, with muted palettes and stormy horizons, Tan's best work is nebulous and hard to categorise. I have this theory that if a painting is really good a five-year-old can still get something out of it, he says. A good painting should hit you in an emotional way.
Often he will haul one of his kids into the studio to see their reaction to a piece he is working on. A bit happy and a bit creepy? Great, that is what I wanted. You can go now, he says.
Life in Brunswick and Community Connection
Tan lives in Brunswick West, a suburb that has the grubby charm of the suburbia of his books, simultaneously familiar and uncanny. He describes Brunswick as just kind of where we ended up. I am an introverted person, so I am not diving into it all the time, but my encounters with the community have been really positive, he says.
Tan likes to draw little scenes and landscapes as a way of getting to know his environment, and in this way Brunswick is beginning to feel more like home. I am still tuning into it, I am painting it and learning things about it, he says.
His newest work, Tales from the Inner City, is the story of a teenage girl who feels pretty normal in her normal town until a stranger from a distant world arrives to tell her she does not belong. From the opening panels introducing the girl's family and friends, augmented by a terrifically sardonic tone in the text, its allegory is both achingly clear and brilliantly inconclusive. It has got to be a bit unfinished and unresolved, and sometimes a bit unsettling, he says.
Philosophy on Art and Talent
Tan's books are filled with curious hybrid creatures and freakish, fantastical landscapes, but he sees his work more modestly. I think you should not take it too seriously; it is not a sacred universe where everything is just so. I use whatever I have to hand, he says. If creatures pop up in several books, or forms seem familiar, that is the limit of my ability, that is what that is.
He does not believe in innate talent, instead crediting enthusiasm and repetition. His parents were warmly encouraging, saying only that he seemed to love doing it. That early encouragement, combined with his own persistence, led to a career marked by numerous awards and a distinctive surrealist style that continues to captivate readers of all ages.
Shaun Tan Picture Book Illustrator The Arrival The Lost Thing Brunswick West Utopia And Dystopia Australian Artist
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