Alake Shilling’s home is her creative sanctuary. She feels the most comfortable there, she admits, surrounded by everything that inspires her – colours, textures, and trinkets that tell stories. “I can have my dinner, watch a little TV and then go back into my studio, before turning out the lights” said the artist. It makes space for very little separation between art and her life beyond her practice, but that’s the way she wants it. For her process to feel more fluid. In sunny Los Angeles, her home studio is filled with sketches, sculptures and materials awaiting transformation.
It’s endearing to hear her “sit with” her characters, “ask them about their day” almost like a parent to a child and finally, what they want from her as their creator. It’s clear that she shares a relationship with each artwork she creates.
She wouldn’t say she “dropped out” of art school. “I honestly feel like I was pushed out through systemic institutional practices that let me down, when I depended on the institution to support me” she said. She was attending the School of Arts Institute in Chicago and describes it as a tumultuous time in her life, filled with uncertainty and an inordinate amount of pressure to succeed – not unlike how many art schools still operate today. It was a different hell from the magical place that she had imagined while originally getting into art working with papier-mâché and ceramics with her mother, which would foster community rather than competition. “It ultimately gave me crippling anxiety,” she said, “I thought it might be the end of me, in every sense of that phrase. I was a very naïve young person. SAIC is a great school, but the environment is sink or swim and unfortunately, I sank.”
There was a certain disconnect between the way she was viewing art practice, and her professors were. Seeing art as play and discovery, she wanted to explore materials and ideas in a way that felt intuitive as she found herself drawn more towards self-directed experimentation, which didn’t sit well. She has admitted that as a child, she didn’t find a lot of work that resonated with her in museum spaces and to be “equipped with the glasses” as she humorously put it, to see herself or her beliefs in permanent collections, required years of research, which she undertook. “Which in a large part took me on a solitary journey through non-traditional lines, silhouettes, textures, colour palettes and artists,” she said. Museums can feel intimidating and exclusive when you’re force-fed artists who do not capture how you see yourself represented and her work is meant to break those barriers in its very tactility – the first things museums deny – along with being emotional and playful.
Tell us, what’s your fixation with textures and their sensuality, considering your work often has hard ridges and shapes. I’ve also seen a photograph of you hugging your ceramic work, which I thought was very interesting, especially considering museum spaces, where you often exhibit, have a rule of not touching the work.
Texture makes art feel alive. I want my sculptures to be things you want to touch, hug, and cuddle — like candy, but also like strange relics from another world. This is the way I explore intimacy through the alluring sensuality of texture. Like, I intentionally use satin glazes for my ceramic sculptures because I want them to beckon the eyes focus on what is soft, fluffy, and delicious. Museums often create this untouchable aura around art, yet I am interested in how we form relationships with objects and ideas that are seemingly out of reach. That’s why I love ceramics, it holds the warmth of human interaction even after it hardens. You know these sculptures are created by someone’s touch and intended for your eyes to form an unbreakable bond.
I’ve seen you mix materials and post them online and call it “candy Laffy Taffy mix” or the colours of marbles you use, so similar to hard, bright toffee.
Food is a perfect metaphor because it’s sensory, nostalgic, and a little messy — just like my work. I love mixing materials in a way that feels edible, like something you could squish between your fingers or bite into. There’s also something surreal about food, it can be comforting or grotesque, which is a duality I like to play with. Sometimes, I like to play with the idea of eating things that are not food, they simply look delicious. They are a for your eyes only delight.
Considering the wonderful soccer work you did for Frieze Art Fair and your artistic style, what makes accessibility so important to you?
I want people to feel an immediate connection, whether through nostalgia, humour, or the sheer joy of colour. That’s why I enjoy participating in public projects, like the Frieze Art Fair soccer sculpture, which invite people to interact with art in an everyday setting. Accessibility is important because I did not give up on art, but many people do, especially when they do not feel a connection right away. Art is a slow burn, and I believe that if my work can resonate immediately, then people will give a wide variety of art styles, artists and voices the opportunity to quietly build momentum until an appreciation for art and the diverse ways in which art can speak to the human experience bringing colour into our lives.
You said you would want people to look at your work and feel like they found it in a junkyard. You said, “It’s trash, but it’s special to them”. Some of your earlier works had more deconstructed and found object aspects to them. What made you shift this aesthetic to a more structured one, but want to keep the junkyard aspect alive?
I love the idea of unexpected treasures, something that looks like it was discarded but carries deep personal meaning. Junkyards hold objects with stories, layers, and history. My earlier work leaned more into raw, broken-down aesthetics, but I’ve since focused on building structure within chaos. I want my work to feel like it’s been through something, but also like it has a deliberate presence. Like a forgotten artefact from a dream.
Childhood is a significant part of your work, which also influences the materials you use. What made you hold on to that phase and keep returning to it in your practice? Moreover, it’s not merely a sanitised presentation of that age, but there’s also mental health issues and the deeper traumas that come with growing up and becoming an adult, how do you balance such understandings with the supposed innocence of childhood?
Childhood is a pure, unfiltered space of creativity, where imagination defies all rules. I’ve always been drawn to that raw energy: colours, textures, and materials that feel playful and alive. But childhood isn’t just joy. It’s also a time of fear, confusion, and resilience. I try to hold space for all realities in my work: the bright, the dark and the many shades of grey undercurrents. That balance comes through in my use of materials, where soft, cartoonish forms sometimes take on eerie or unsettling qualities. I am extremely connected to my inner child. It simply is who I am. I made a promise to myself to always be genuine, so the child lives and thrives!
You also depict violence in a way that is cute and therefore wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary, like an unperturbed octopus trying to gobble up startled fishes. Many of the fairy tales we read as children were quite violent, what makes you work with this aspect?
Childhood is full of strange, dark moments. Fairy tales, cartoons, and even toys have a violent edge — think about Looney Tunes or old nursery rhymes. I like playing with that contrast, making something cute but slightly unsettling. It mirrors how we process trauma, sometimes through humour, sometimes through fantasy.
Do you see your creatures like Buggy Bear as characters with lives and stories of their own, or as something more abstract?
They’re characters, but they also feel like fragments of memory or emotion. Buggy Bear, for example, has this strange, endearing sadness to him — he’s cute but slightly off. I think of my characters as beings from a universe that exists just outside of reality. I feel they are more abstract right now, but the goal is for people to be able to see full on narratives that follow a stable cast of characters. This aspect of my art is truly a work in progress that allows my fanbase to follow along in the journey.
Considering the figures you work with are very cartoon or caricature-like, what cartoons did you watch as a kid and tell us the ones you still watch.
My favourite cartoon as a young child was School House Rock. I thought the 70s animation style was very appealing along with the positive messages that catered to learning. The songs were also great. I still remember a few of them and sing them to myself all the time. While watching School House Rock, I could enjoy history, maths, or any of the traditional disciplines a young person would encounter during their formal education through a fun animated show, it was a whimsical magic adventure. This show gave me the opportunity to learn without any pressure. Just my natural curiosity. The feeling was wonderful. As an adult, I still enjoy watching cartoons that have a mix of humour and surrealism however now I watch less for entertainment and more for research purposes. Currently I can be found catching a wave of inspiration from watching classics: Disney, Looney Tunes, Betty Boop, and The Flintstones.
How does humour play out in your work?
I like funny people and funny things. I deeply appreciate satire, irony, surreal humour and observational humour. I think mother nature is the ultimate comedian. I have a good example of this. I love these water birds called coots. Coots have huge feet, skinny legs and plump round bodies. During mating season, they build these great nests on the water. To defend it from predators they flip on their backs and slap their enemies with their huge feet! It truly sounds like the plot of a Loony Tunes episode. However, this is a life-or-death situation for these birds, and I love that.
I do see my work as aligned with the absurdity of life, but ultimately everything leans toward the positive. For example, right now, I am working on a new ladybug ceramic that looks a bit glum. I decided she’s sad because she ran out of snacks. Sometimes, you run out of snacks. But don’t count her out, she’s got a really funny plan to acquire more snacks. By incorporating my celebratory humour about life, I am acknowledging the awkwardness and contradictions of being an adult while still holding onto a childlike sense of wonder. My creatures, with their exaggerated expressions and odd proportions, sometimes appear overwhelmed, confused, or out of place — much like how I feel navigating adulthood. Just look at my Tickle Bug (2023), he is a big fat bug with googly eyes a comically huge shell, tiny little hands and big black feet but he is ready to party! In fact, he is the life of the party!
Every character has something to offer despite their off-beat proportions and wonky teeth, just like me. My art says you can have it all and still mess up your sweet ride by rolling too fast over gumdrop rocks. That is my work because that is life. My art is supposed to embrace the act of liking something, or even loving something that you never thought you could or would. Honestly, I like to avoid laughter that emerges from the grotesque, or slapstick forms of humour. The balance I create stems from wanting to stabilise notions of laughter with my authenticity to attach more empowering perspectives to life.
I do see my work as aligned with the absurdity of life, but ultimately everything leans toward the positive. For example, right now, I am working on a new ladybug ceramic that looks a bit glum. I decided she’s sad because she ran out of snacks. Sometimes, you run out of snacks. But don’t count her out, she’s got a really funny plan to acquire more snacks. By incorporating my celebratory humour about life, I am acknowledging the awkwardness and contradictions of being an adult while still holding onto a childlike sense of wonder. My creatures, with their exaggerated expressions and odd proportions, sometimes appear overwhelmed, confused, or out of place — much like how I feel navigating adulthood. Just look at my Tickle Bug (2023), he is a big fat bug with googly eyes a comically huge shell, tiny little hands and big black feet but he is ready to party! In fact, he is the life of the party!
Every character has something to offer despite their off-beat proportions and wonky teeth, just like me. My art says you can have it all and still mess up your sweet ride by rolling too fast over gumdrop rocks. That is my work because that is life. My art is supposed to embrace the act of liking something, or even loving something that you never thought you could or would. Honestly, I like to avoid laughter that emerges from the grotesque, or slapstick forms of humour. The balance I create stems from wanting to stabilise notions of laughter with my authenticity to attach more empowering perspectives to life.
You’ve spoken about being influenced by animals in the traditional mythology of Yoruba culture.
My influences range from folk art to pop culture, outsider art to Yoruba mythology. Animals, especially, hold symbolic power in many cultures. For the Yoruba animals are known to represent aspects of character such as cunning, strength or power. I love the idea that ethics and morals can be attached to animals and how they can embody wisdom, trickery, transformation — they become these archetypes of emotion and experience for the characters in my own work. In addition, I really admire Aesop’s fables for their embedded wisdom, and I like to build off that idea to interrogate morals, and character through the creation of my own animal characters. Moreover, the Aztec mosaic animals are also a source of insight because they bring to the fore my admiration of using texture, precious gems and stones which tantalise the eye along with bringing mythological animals to life.
You use unmalleable materials like sequins and pebbles in your work, how do you figure out ways of working around this aspect?
It’s all about experimentation. I like juxtaposing textures. Something rough next to something smooth, something shiny against something dull. I collect materials obsessively and see how they interact. It’s fun going on a whimsical scavenger hunt looking for the textures and actual objects. The first step is always researching what I am interested in and what has been done. I have already seen the combinations or things that I like somewhere in nature, fashion or even food. I just go about trying to capture the magic again in my work.
You’ve said before that fashion is a big part of your research. You’ve also collaborated on commercial drops with brands like Marc Jacobs. How does this two-pronged aspect of your work usually pan out?
Fashion is another form of storytelling and collaborating with designers lets me see how my aesthetic translates into wearable art. Working with Marc Jacobs was amazing because they let me bring my vision to life without limitations. I love trekking to high end fashion stores. Looking at textures and patterns and details – like beads and sequins, asking what they are using and investigating different techniques truly inspires me and provides me with a tactile sense of what I want to include. I like going to look at clothes in person because everything looks so different to me IRL. I like to immerse myself in the visual language and feel of the designers to become part of their story.
What’s your personal style?
Colour, texture, and patterns excite me, whether in a painting, a sculpture, or what I wear. There’s something liberating about rejecting minimalism and embracing maximalist self-expression. My personal style also reflects my love for cartoons and fantasy worlds, I want my clothes to feel like an extension of the characters I create.
What’s something you really want to do and haven’t done until now?
The project which lives most prominently in my imagination is a pyjama line. Since my studio has historically always been at my home, I have been accustomed to painting in my pyjamas, unlike Basquiat who loved to paint in his suits. Pyjamas bring a sense of comfort and are also very playful. I want to bring pyjamas into the forefront of people’s imagination by creating exciting shapes and fun characters that live on plush fabrics which melt into the skin and induce dream-like wonder. An amusement park would also be incredible! I love the idea of creating a visual world where kids and adults can get lost in, and immersive installations where people can visit the world in which my characters live. Maybe one day people will be able to visit Alake’s World along with Disneyland!
