Back in 2019, I visited Australian illustrator Shaun Tan’s Welcome To Nowhere art exhibition while I was in Tokyo, and walked away really impressed after seeing his art works up-close and in person. Since then, I’ve been picking up his art books periodically and have reviewed quite a number of them here.

Creature – Paintings, Drawings And Reflections is his latest art book, a lavish hardcover volume that serves not only as a retrospective as he discuss and ponder upon his artistic creations from the past 25 years, but it also features unseen and stand-alone illustrations that have never been published until now.

The book utilizes the big print format to fully show off Shaun Tan’s beautiful sketches, illustrations and oil paintings, with most of the art work filling the entire page, and the artist’s notes and background information for each art piece are presented at the end of the book accompanied by thumbnails.

Adept in a variety of media, Shaun Tan seems equally at ease with his superbly detailed cross-hatching pencil drawing as he is with colors and oil paints. A visual hallmark of his work are the dreamlike images of larger than life animals and creatures juxtaposed against mundane, every day scenes, and many of them are featured in this book.

Book synopsis from the publisher – From the creator of The Arrival, a collection of essays illuminating his thoughts and advice for writers and artists, young and old.

Shaun Tan is one of the world’s most highly acclaimed narrative artists—his stories and images are loved by countless young and not-so-young readers around the world. Drawing upon 25 years as a picture book and comics creator, painter, and film-maker, Creature explores the central obsession of this visionary artist, from casual doodles to studied oil-paintings.

Beyond sketches for acclaimed works such as The Arrival, The Lost Thing, and Tales From Outer Suburbia, this volume collects together for the first time unseen and stand-alone illustrations, each resonant with unwritten tales of their own. Detailed commentary by the artist offers an entertaining insight into the endless allure of imaginary, non-human beings and what they might tell us about our so-called “normal” human selves.

Artists, writers, students, dreamers, and anyone interested in the deeper undercurrents of creativity, myth, and visual metaphor will find inspiration in these pages.

I have purchased and reviewed quite a number of Shaun Tan’s books since 2019, and all of them have been fantastic. This new book Creature is perfect not only for existing fans of the artist, but also a great primer for those who are new to his work due to the comprehensive scope of the material covered. For such a big hardcover art book, and with excellent reproductions of the colored illustrations, the price point is a bargain. Very highly recommended.

Creature – Paintings, Drawings And Reflections – Shaun Tan details :

– Dimensions – 9.75 x 1 x 11.4 inches
– hardcover, 224 pages
– Full color, in English

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