David Shrigley is a creature of habit.
The 55-year-old British artist wears a uniform — a dark polo with jeans — has a disciplined studio practice — 10am–6pm with a power nap in the middle — and is currently abstaining from meat, booze, gluten and dairy: "New year, new me."
It's not the rock'n'roll existence you might expect of one of the most well-known and acclaimed conceptual artists working today.
And yet, it's befitting of someone whose images of banal objects and droll musings about daily life have become his signature, and whose blend of cynicism and hope has amassed more than a million Instagram followers.
When we meet in a back room at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Shrigley is affably jet-lagged and wearing his dark polo. His manner is very British, very deadpan, and quietly hilarious.
He's just touched down for the launch of his work, Melbourne Tennis Ball Exchange, an interactive installation in which punters can trade in their manky, chewed and beaten-up tennis balls for one of 8,000 brand-new ones, on show as part of the NGV Triennial Extra program.
Shrigley's muse for the project? His dog Inka.
"Her relationship with tennis balls isn't really to do with the way that human beings interact with objects, [in] that they have value and they want to keep them. The dog just sort of chases it and then gives up on it," he says.
"I guess it's like a substitute for a rodent or something."
Originally staged at Stephen Friedman Gallery in Mayfair (UK), Tennis Ball Exchange subverts the traditional commercial gallery transaction (in which art is traded for sometimes vast sums of money). For Shrigley, swapping one object for an identical one "felt like a sort of Dada-ist form of commerce".
He was also surprised by the way the audience interacted with the work, having assumed people would simply trade a dirty tennis ball for a clean one.
"What actually happened was a lot of people made artwork on [the balls] and it became an opportunity to make an artistic intervention in the exhibition," says Shrigley.
I take this cue to retrieve my offering from my bag — it's a tennis ball with "ART" written on it.
"I like that", he says and pulls out his phone for a photo.
Subverting the everyday
For a work that Shrigley admits is "pretty stupid", it fits neatly into his highly conceptual oeuvre.
From pulping unwanted copies of The Da Vinci Code and reprinting them as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, to making an LED digital clock that is blurry to the point of illegibility, or a giant, perfectly usable phone that has every number except "0", Shrigley has mastered the ability to mess with everyday objects in a way that tenderly mocks our engagement with them.
But his works on paper — drawings and paintings combining simple images and text — are both Shrigley's bread and butter, and his true love.
They also appeal to his enormous online audience, with dark humour that's both a salve in an otherwise glossy, influencer-driven landscape, and a cutting reflection of our own existential ordinariness.
Some posts are a sure-fire hit: cats, dogs and anything drug-related.
Others have missed the mark: a few ill-timed posts were inadvertently read as political commentary, so Shrigley now leaves the posting to someone else.
But it's not really about the numbers. For Shrigley, making the work is about pursuing pleasure and joy.
"Everything I've ever wanted was to live my life like the first day of art school, where it just felt really exciting and you [realise], 'I don't have to do maths anymore, I can just make art.'"
Given the simplicity of the images — his handwriting could belong to a primary schooler — you'd be forgiven for thinking Shrigley was deliberately snubbing his art school training.
"I have an odd relationship to the way that I go about making graphic art, whereby it's sort of borne of having some craft skills, but not really having evolved a great deal since I was about 12," he says.
"You can make art without craft, and you can make craft without art. For me, personally, craft has gotten in the way at times, and the desire to be a craftsman has taken me on the wrong path. Now I've completely eliminated it from my practice to some extent."
Art that gets under your skin
There are very few artists whose work you're as likely to encounter in a homewares shop as you are in a gallery.
But, like Andy Warhol or Keith Haring, Shrigley has managed to perforate the art world and thoroughly embed himself in the culture.
Through his '"Shrig Shop" and countless collaborations, he's designed an eclectic suite of objects: Shrigley patches, pins, postcards, keyrings, salt and pepper shakers, tote bags, puzzles, teapots, rugs — even inflatable pool toys.
But of all the Shrigley merchandise, a bespoke tattoo reigns supreme.
It's a trend that "happened by accident".
"I'm willing to do it, I just don't approve of it", he laughs.
"I realise that makes me seem like a middle-aged man; like somebody's dad."
Nonetheless, the cracks in Shrigley's disapproval are evident: a section of his website is dedicated to those "indelibly marked" by his designs, and he's participated in live tattooing events.
"I still embrace it to some extent, but I embrace it reluctantly because this is the path the art has taken me, and I find that amusing.
"I find it funny that I don't want to do it, but I still do it."
And so, it's with some trepidation that at the end of our chat, I pitch Shrigley a trade: I contributed "ART" to his body of work, and now he can contribute "ART" to mine.
I don't mind if he thinks it's stupid, I offer as an out.
"The thing is, right: when you're me, there's nothing stupid."
"I like the idea that this is the antithesis of the way that you're supposed to do [a tattoo] — you're supposed to map it out — and because it's just slightly badly written."
Trade complete, we part ways: Shrigley to enjoy an overdue, gluten-free lunch, and me to call some tattoo studios.
But before he walks out the door, he turns back. "You don't have to do this."
"I know", I say. "Thanks Dad."
David Shrigley's Really Good is at NGV Triennial until April 7.