A biography for Grayson Perryhasn’t been written yet.
“I did a psychotherapy day once, about class, and the first thing they did was get us to talk about our names. Of course, me, being called Grayson, everybody thinks its somehow unusual and classy. No, its bang-on aspirational working class.”
“Part of being an artist is that you are achingly self-conscious about every aesthetic decision you make, and taste is at its most powerful when it's a default, unconscious decision because that's when all the influence of your childhood and background and society comes into play.”
“Road rage is my vice. Im a cyclist and motorcyclist, and people who dont indicate drive me nuts.”
“My father was a keen photographer; he had his own darkroom.”
“Im a fan of the restaurant where they only have one thing and maybe a vegetarian option. You get what you are given.”
“The sound a box of Lego makes is the noise of a child's mind working, looking for the right piece. Shake it, and it's almost creativity in aural form.”
“Nothing frustrates me about the art world. It is a lovely place. There are many daft things that amuse me about it though.”
“I embrace the middle ground, because curiously it has more edge to it than the cutting edge. It has been a weirdly neglected path for the audience of contemporary art. Im making art not for people who dont like art, but for people who are interested but maybe alienated by the more esoteric pieces.”
“I think I grew up in an 'acultural' household - no books, no paintings, never went to an art gallery. I say that, but of course we had the TV.”
“If you had bought my work in 1983 you could have had it for next to nothing.”
“Of course, I worry about being fashionable, although when you're fashionable you're already on the track to being unfashionable.”
“As human beings, we are addicted to novelty. Part of being stylish is surprisingness. Part of being an artist is surprisingness. If there are ingredients of beauty, it certainly is one of them. Surprise is like a spice on the meal, it makes you say: 'woo'.”
“Some people will have working-class, front-room grandma taste that is better than other people's. I went to stately homes that are a bit duff, and stately homes that were absolutely eye-popping.”
“My great overall skill is spontaneity and winging it!”
“It's interesting that female artists are underrepresented in exhibitions. That may be down to the fact that the people in power in the art world are men.”
“And it's been one of my big sort of campaigns throughout my career, really, is to sort of make art accessible but without dumbing it down. You know, art - the more you know about it, the more you enjoy it.”
“Im quite self-serving so, while going round a degree show, what I really want to find out is whats going on in the world today, particularly as technology has widened the chasm between generations.”
“If youre sure that everything youre going to do is going to be good, then whats the point? I used to think of it as just crippling self-doubt. Now I kind of see it as a sign that Im teetering on the edge of something new. Or troubling.”
“Im as masculine as the next man - get me on the mountain bike and Im vicious.”
“I had an affair with an older woman when I was at college, and she was a strong feminist, which shaped my view of women. I learned that they could call the shots, which was fine with me.”