Shaun Tan grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. In 1995 he graduated from the University of WA with honours in fine arts and English literature and currently works as an artist and author in Melbourne.

In his youth, Shaun drew pictures of robots, spaceships and dinosaurs. In adolescence, Tan began to draw illustrations for science fiction magazines and horror books. His first illustration was published in 1990 in the journal called "Aurealis". Shaun Tan worked primarily in black and white, with such materials and techniques like ink, charcoal, photocopies, pens, acrylic, and linocut. More recent works in color also began with monochrome. He draws his sketches on regular paper with a graphite pencil, many times repeating them with certain elements. Tan also uses collage work with different types of materials such as metal, glass and cuttings from books. For this purpose, he even used dead insects.

Entire worlds are created and come to life in his illustrations, funny, and unique. I love this artist's work! The theme of a mechanical universe has always resonated with me. Walking mechanoids, distressed, with their stories, unknown creatures, woven into the urban jungle of history.

Shaun Tan writes books and illustrates them — they are magical, one-of-a-kind sad stories. There is a short cartoon version of his book "The Lost Thing", which in 2011 won the "Oscar". There are many theatrical productions.