Member Spotlight: Shaun Tan

1.10.22

Our October Member Spotlight features Shaun Tan! Shaun's work is currently being exhibited in Imagine...the Wonder of Picture Books exhibition at the State Library of NSW, and a collection of his artwork from the past 25 years will be published in his new release Creature, coming out this month.

Shaun Tan grew up in Perth and works as an artist, writer and film-maker in Melbourne. He is best known for illustrated books that deal with social and historical subjects through dream-like imagery, widely translated throughout the world and enjoyed by readers of all ages. Shaun is the recipient of an Academy Award for the short animated film The Lost Thing, the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden and the Kate Greenaway Medal in the UK. His most recent book is the retrospective Creature, Windy Hollow Books, 2022.

What inspired you to begin writing and illustrating?

Like most in the field, my beginnings were quite convoluted, with plenty of forward and backward steps, lots of uncertainty. But essentially my interest in both writing and illustration was cemented by small science fiction magazines I came across in an outer suburban newsagency around the age of 13. In keeping with a tradition going back to the earliest pulp magazines, these short story periodicals were (and still are) illustrated with singular images that capture some obscure theme, without giving too much away. They tell their own little story. They inspired me to both write and illustrate science fiction short stories as a teenager, and I had some small success with these, winning a trip to the US to participate in workshops with professionals. That was the first time I realised fully that some people wrote and illustrated as a job, and took it very seriously indeed.

A little later I became very interested in Australian historical and contemporary painters, and literary writers. In particular, Arthur Streeton and Tim Winton, after a high school English teacher recommended I read An Open Swimmer. It was the first time I’d read a novel that represented a familiar suburban and coastal landscape, and written by a guy who looked not much older than us high school students. These and a few thousand other things inspired me to paint and write, and later to illustrate, I suppose as a way of bringing those interests together and making a living. As a result I think my work is strung between a speculative imagination instilled by science fiction, and a very grounded interest in local suburban landscapes, objects and people. I came into children’s literature from that oblique angle, having worked with lots of SF, fantasy and horror writers in small press publications, who also wrote for younger audiences and sometimes needed an illustrator with the right genre sensibility. It’s an odd fit really, but I found picture books to be the ideal form for the expression of the kinds of short, mysterious, mostly visual stories I like to construct. I don’t really write or draw for children, but I want to include them as readers, and have come to realise that they are some of the best readers, especially when it comes to a considered and creative examination of pictures.

What does it mean to you to have your work featured in the Imagine exhibition at the State Library of NSW?

I always enjoy feeling like part of a bigger project as a picture book creator, shelved and exhibited alongside peers. All picture book creators come from mixed backgrounds and odd career trajectories, but we come together like scientists independently realising the common principles of visual storytelling, and exhibitions like this help to show a little of this, with rough sketches and notes as well as finished artwork. The similarities, regardless of theme, audience age, or style, always stand out. There are certain essential currents in picture book writing and illustration that make this such an enduring and universal form of literature. 

What do you know now that you wish you'd known at the beginning of your writing and illustrating career?

Just that everything would be okay! Young writers and illustrators can have a very tough time, overcoming self-doubt on top of the difficulties of trying to get published, paying rent, feeling creatively satisfied in a commercial field. The fact that it’s often a solitary profession doesn’t help. I certainly felt quite isolated in suburban Perth, uncertain and a little depressed when I started out, which is actually reflected in my early books like The Lost Thing  and The Red Tree. Books that since became popular and remain in print 20 years on, perhaps because other young people can relate. The Lost Thing in particular is about a creative impulse at odds with a somewhat bleak economic reality, represented as a hapless creature on an industrial beach. But I’m grateful for the support of small communities, such as small press science fiction publishers in Perth, The Literature Centre in Fremantle and many others, including the ASA. They were basically saying to new creators ‘everything will be okay’.

Which Australian authors and illustrators have been influential for your practice?

Most practically, Gary Crew, with whom I illustrated my first books and acted as a mentor throughout that process. I would also mention Helen Chamberlin, the editor who offered me my first illustration contract in 1996 and with whom I continue to work, as a major creative influence. Many others have guided and influenced me stylistically since: Ron Brooks, John Marsden, Michael Leunig, Margaret Wild, Tohby Riddle, Ann James, countless SF authors I’ve illustrated over the years including Garth Nix, Margo Lanagan, Greg Egan, and writers such as Peter Carey who cross literary categories. Too many Australian artists to name. I think the division between illustration and other painting is largely artificial. I think anyone who paints with narrative implications is approaching illustration, eg. John Brack and Jeffrey Smart, so I’m interested in that boundary, or how pictures can become stories, and vice versa.

Find out more about Shaun Tan at www.shauntan.net