Portrait of the Artist as a working Class Hero

Fergal Conlan
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2016
BA

Subject: Film, Performance art, Prints and Ceramics
Country: Britain
Century: 21st Century

10,000 words

Grayson Perry is one of the most successful artists active in Britain today. He works mainly in ceramics, tapestries and prints. Perry experimented with many styles and techniques, including film and performance art before focusing primarily on the medium of ceramics. His ceramics are aesthetically attractive, pretty to look at when initially encounted. However when the images and text presented are examined more closely they are shocking in their dark and sometimes sexually explicit subject matter. Perry’s practice and ethos has been heavily influenced by a number of sources, including the performance art group. The Neo-Naturists and the art and life of the outsider artist Henry Darger. Perry won and accepted the Turner Prize in 2003, for his exhibition entitled ‘Guerrilla Tactics’, 2003.

Irish Georgian Society

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Portrait of the Artist as a working Class Hero