David Shenton: Kindly Ease the Tension Book Launch & In Conversation
10 October 2026
Join trailblazing gay artist David Shenton and artist Ian Giles for a special conversation celebrating the London launch of the book David Shenton: Kindly Ease the Tension.
Ian and David will explore his extraordinary five-decade career; during which he has produced LGBTQ+ cartoons and comics alongside monumental textiles and his ongoing activism across queer life and culture. Since the 1970s, David’s output includes publishing the world’s first full-length gay graphic novel Stanley and the Mask of Mystery; his cartoons regularly appeared in Gay News and Capital Gay and later in The Guardian.
Their conversation accompanies the launch of Kindly Ease the Tension, an expansive and tactile publication bringing together David’s cartoons, paintings, clothing, knitted artworks, textiles and illustrations. The book reveals the breadth and playfulness of his practice.
Inspired by David’s own methods, the publication incorporates his distinctive pink graph paper, familiar from the knitting patterns he has used throughout his career. Conceived by Ian Giles and designed with Modern Activity, it is less a conventional monograph more like an intimate encounter with David’s working process and archive. The publication also includes a transcribed conversation between David and Ruth Battersby, Senior Curator of Costume and Textiles at Norfolk Museums Service.
Come and hear directly from David about the stories behind the work and celebrate the launch of this unique new publication.
Kindly Ease the Tension accompanies the first major retrospective of David Shenton’s work at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, curated by Ian Giles with Ruth Battersby on until January 2027.
This conversation accompanies Queer As Comics on display in our Coal Stores Gallery until 1 November. The event will cover themes explored in the exhibition. For more information about the content that may be referred to in this event, please head to the exhibition page.(opens in new window)
David Shenton has been creating LBGTQ+ cartoons and comics since the 1970s when his work started appearing in publications such as Gay News and Capital Gay. His book Stanley and the Mask of Mystery (1983) was one of the first LGBTQ+ graphic novels. David studied printed textiles at Loughborough College of Art and Design and received his teaching certificate at Leeds University in 1971. Alongside his career as an artist, he has also taught art and literacy at Norwich Prison, Hackney College and worked in the Bug House at London Zoo.
As well as David Shenton's retrospective opening at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, his work is currently part of the inaugural exhibition Queer as Comics at Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration and in LGBTQomics at Musée de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême, France.
Ian Giles completed his BFA at Chelsea College of Arts and his MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art. His work has recently been exhibited at MIMA, Museum of the Home, Whitechapel Gallery and Southampton City Art Gallery. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include Everyone Involved at Queer Britain, London in October 2026.
Selected exhibitions, performances and screenings include: Come Together, a workshop at Cubitt, London (2025); Everyone Involved at God’s House Tower, Southampton (2024); Middlesbrough Collection: Soft Structures at MIMA, Middlesbrough (2023/24); On Railton Road at Museum of the Home, London (2023) and ‘A Clear Comfort’ at Van Gogh House, London (2023). His work has also been shown at Harvard University, Glasgow International, the Chisenhale Gallery and Grand Union. He has been a visiting artist and lectured at Chelsea College of Arts, Central Saint Martins, Camberwell College of Arts, Birmingham School of Art, and the University of Cambridge Department of Architecture.
We want our events to be inclusive and accessible.
If you have any accessibility requests or questions, please email events@qbcentre.org.uk or phone 020 4524 2657.
You can find out more about Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration’s facilities and accessibility here: Accessing the Centre.(opens in new window)
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