Grayson Perry is an English contemporary artist, writer, and broadcaster. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary art scene, and for dissecting British “prejudices, fashions and foibles”.
He has made several documentary television programs and has curated exhibitions.
Perry has published two autobiographies, Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl (2007) and The Descent of Man (2016).
He has also written and illustrated a graphic novel, Cycle of Violence (2012), written a book about art, Playing to the Gallery (2014), and published his illustrated Sketchbooks (2016). Various books describing his work have been published. In 2013 he delivered the BBC Reith Lectures.
He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003. He was interviewed about the win and resulting press in Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World.
In 2008, Perry was ranked number 32 in The Daily Telegraph’s list of the “100 most powerful people in British culture”.
Perry was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life in 2012.
What techniques does Grayson Perry use?
Grayson Perry vessels are made by coiling, a traditional method. Most have a complex surface employing many techniques, including glazing, incision, embossing, and the use of photographic transfers, which require several firings. To some he adds sprigs, little relief sculptures stuck to the surface.