If you’ve ever felt like your local suburbia is just a little bit cursed, you’re definitely vibing on Shaun Tan’s wavelength. The Australian picture book icon—best known for his Oscar-winning work 'The Lost Thing' and the cult-favorite 'The Arrival'—is basically the architect of suburban surrealism. While his books are packed with weirdo hybrid creatures and dystopian atmosphere, in real life, Tan is lowkey just a chill guy in a puffer jacket hanging out in Brunswick West with his French bulldog, Reuben.
The art of the 'unresolved'
Tan isn’t trying to over-explain his work, which honestly? We stan. He prefers to keep things a bit nebulous. "Most of the books and movies and cartoons I’ve enjoyed are the ones I don’t actually understand," he says. His goal is to leave a "residual echo" in the reader’s mind rather than wrapping everything up in a neat little bow. His latest project, 'Hometown', follows a teen girl whose reality gets flipped when a total stranger rolls into town to tell her she doesn't belong—it’s giving major existential crisis energy, and we are here for it.
Talent is just a grind
Don't go looking for some magical ‘born with it’ origin story. Tan is real talk about his journey: he didn’t think he was a prodigy, he just had an intense interest and a solid work ethic. He credits his high school art training for his foundation and views ‘talent’ as nothing more than showing up for a thousand hours of practice. Even his workspace isn’t some Pinterest-worthy studio; he calls his previous spots ‘dungeons,’ mostly because when he’s drawing, he’s mentally checking out of reality anyway.
Seeing past the 'thin skin'
Tan’s secret sauce is his ability to look at the back of a random building or a set of trees and see a "collective organism." He’s obsessed with the idea that we’re only looking at a "thin skin of reality." Whether he's looking at human anatomy or the way a suburb is built, he’s constantly peeling back the layers to see the weird, magical mechanics underneath.
Why it matters
Shaun Tan’s work reminds us that you don’t need to go to space to find the surreal; sometimes the most ‘main character’ energy is hidden in the mundane parts of our own neighborhoods. His refusal to over-define his art makes his stories timeless for kids and adults alike, proving that a little bit of ‘creepy’ can actually be a good thing.
