COPENHAGEN.- Galleri Nicolai Wallner is presenting ‘The Mantis Muse’ by David Shrigley, for the first time outside of the UK.

For this exhibition, a giant praying mantis sculpture by David Shrigley stretches into the tall ceilings, its elegant arms and charming smile bringing an unmistakable playfulness into the white cube. Made from fibreglass and steel with an animatronic head, The Mantis Muse stands at three meters tall. The walls of the gallery are covered with hundreds of drawings of the Mantis – mostly by local school children and visitors to the gallery. Surrounding the insect are easels and drawing boards, and other supplies – an invitation to draw as a way of looking.

Shrigley first presented The Mantis Muse in the school where he first learned about art, functioning as an invitation to engage in creativity as part of the learning process.

At the school in Leicestershire, England, students were invited to take part in a series of lessons inspired by The Mantis Muse, with a particular focus on using the sculpture as a starting point for life drawing.

During the project, students produced over 1,000 individual artworks, demonstrating a remarkable level of engagement and creative response. The project also received national media attention, sparking wider conversations about how children learn through creativity and the impact of providing meaningful artistic opportunities.

This is the first time The Mantis Muse has been shown in a gallery setting. On this occasion, Galleri Nicolai Wallner has invited schools in the neighboring areas to participate in the exhibition, with over 300 students joining to draw the praying mantis in shades of green and yellow. Through the exhibition, drawing supplies will be available for every guest, big or small, to draw their own Mantis and place it in the exhibition.

I made The Mantis Muse because it’s always puzzled me that our earliest lessons are based around drawing or painting, yet after a certain age, art is seen as a dead-end. 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.

This is the third place this work has been, and the first time in an art gallery, which is very different context from where it has been shown in before. I think it’s interesting to show it in the gallery space because it suggests that the gallery can be a place of learning[…]. Perhaps sometimes people feel intimidated about visiting commercial galleries, so it’s nice to make a work that is an invitation for people to do something when they’re here. It’s an invitation firstly for kids to come and make marks in the gallery, but it’s also a nice opportunity to connect the gallery with the local schools because I think that art galleries are a place of learning and hopefully this project illustrates that.

– David Shrigley

David Shrigley OBE (b. 1968, UK) has received international and critical acclaim for his work which plays with humour and honesty, working primarily with drawing, as well as sculpture, installation and animation. Recurring themes and sometimes banal thoughts pervade his storytelling, capturing deliberately two-dimensional views of the world. Both poignant and sarcastic, his iconic work is a reminder of what it is that unites us and what makes us all human.

In 2016, David Shrigley’s seven meter tall “thumbs up” sculpture was unveiled in Trafalgar Square, for the Fourth Plinth Commission. He was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize in 2013, following a major mid-career retrospective at the Hayward Gallery (London). In 2018 Shrigley was appointed as the Guest Director of the Brighton Festival.

Shrigley’s works are found in prominent collections around the world, including Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York), Tate Britain (London), The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago), Collection Lambert (Avignon), MUDAM (Luxembourg), The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh), The National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen), among others. In 2020, Shrigley was awarded an OBE in The Queen’s New Years Honours list for services to Visual Arts.

In 2021, David Shrigley founded Shrig Shop together with long-term gallerist and friend, Nicolai Wallner. At this shop situated in Copenhagen, they make limited editions, posters, as well as other collectibles, serving as an extension of David Shrigley’s artistic practice.