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So we're here next to a piece by Greyson Perry, who's a very popular contemporary artist.
Lots of people know who he is, but could you tell me anything about his background?
Yes, so Greyson Perry had quite a difficult background; quite a difficult childhood.
His Mum and Dad spilt up when he was quite young and he initially lived with his mum and his step-dad.
And it was at this time he started to kind of discover his creativity, he was very young;
He spent a lot of time drawing and making things.
And was that a kind of escape from the fact that his step-father was quite abusive?
Yes, yeah his step father was quite absuive so he used that as a way to escape and he also had a teddy bear,
Called Alan Measles that he used to spend a lot of time with and talk to and kind of treat as a member of the family,
To kind of help him through this quite difficult part of his life.
When he was fifteen, he then left and moved in with his Dad and his Step-Mum.
Unfortunately things weren't much better there and when they found out that he had started cross dressing,
They sort of rejected him again, and asked him to leave.
And this is about the time when he first began started going out in public in women's clothes.
Yeah and they found that he had been doing that and when he left to go to university they basically told him to not come back afterwards.
So after he finished his degree in fine art, he moved to london and spent a lot of time living in squats.
Sounds quite difficult.
Yes and that was where he met people like Boy George, and sort of other friends.
Other members of the new romantics scene.
And they spent a lot of time going out and having kind of dressing up competitions,
Where they would see who could go out and dress in the most outrageous and sort of daring outfits.
And it was also during this time that he started working with ceramics.
In particular he was working on plates, and he said he felt like ceramics offered a better blank space to work with
Than any traditional fine art, sort of medium so like film or painting.
It was all a bit stuffy and formal.
Yeah. He felt like he could kind of say more on something made of ceramic rather than...
Because he has this theme of importance of craft and how craft can convey meaning through his work.
So eventually he moved from plates on to jugs and it was ones like this, jugs and vases that won him the Turner prize in 2003.
So what kind of themes is he dealing with?
Well he seems to have a kind of recurring sort of theme where he likes to cover up initially quite difficult, disturbing themes
With fantasy drawings and bright colours so you really have to go and inspect his work in detail,
To really see what he's trying to say and that's something that may also be mirrored by the fact he dresses up as Claire.
He collected his turner prize dressed up as Claire.
Yes, yes he did collect his turner prize dressed up as Claire. Claire being this female alter ego.
Like a little girl, not just a woman, but a little girl...
That he maybe using as a way to kind of hide from his very difficult childhood, so yeah it's very much about covering up disturbing things with pretty things.