Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry creates seductively beautiful pots to convey challenging themes: at the heart of his practice is a passionate desire to comment on deep flaws within society. The forms of the pots may be traditional, but Perry resolutely distances himself from the typical cannon of artistic ceramics. Rather he uses pots as narrative and figurative media, a round, curved surface for a bizarre or bitter story. Covered in a kind of psychic collage replete with stark, expressionistic drawings, hand written text, stenciled lettering and photographs. Savage satirical messages are scrawled alongside nostalgia for lost innocence. He is a master of the incongruous juxtaposition. His work incorporates art history and the art world, consumer culture, scenarios of kinky sex and allusions to violence as well as images of himself, his family and his transvestite alter ego Claire.

Grayson Perry was born in Chelmsford in 1960. He studied at Braintree College of Further Education and at Portsmouth Polytechnic. In the early 1980s Perry was a member of the Neo-Naturist group, and took part in performance and film works. He has continued to create work in a variety of media that includes embroidery and photography but is best known for his ceramic works. Grayson Perry won the Turner Prize in 2003. His exhibitions include 2004, A Secret History of Clay from Gauguin to Gormley, Tate Liverpool, Collection Intervention, Tate St. Ives, St. Ives; 2002 Guerilla Tactics, Barbican Art Gallery, London, and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

A 48pp artist's book accompanies the exhibition with a text by Professor Lisa Jardine. Special exhibition price £15. Published October 2004, available from the Victoria Miro Gallery.