Connecting Conversations: Grayson Perry in Conversation with Valerie Sinason
Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry talks to psychoanalyst Valerie Sinason about the challenging and often dark themes conveyed by his decorative, colourful works. They will explore Perry’s use of his own identity in his art, and the way his early life shaped his creativity.
Grayson Perry is best known for his seductively beautiful ceramic vases which, at a distance, seem classically decorative but on closer inspection reveal narratives on aesthetic, cultural, social and political subjects. As well as his signature ceramics he has worked in a variety of media including embroidery, film, photography, tapestry, etching and cast metal. He has exhibited regularly and increasingly internationally for 27 years. Perry is also Britain’s second most famous transvestite – he accepted the 2003 Turner Prize as his alter ego Claire, wearing a purple satin party frock. His autobiography, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, co-authored with Wendy Jones, was published in 2006. He often appears on TV, radio and in the newspapers commenting on cultural issues and had a weekly arts column in The Times for two years.
Valerie Sinason is a poet, child psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst specialising in trauma and disability. Her most recent edited works are Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity; working with dissociative identity disorder and poetry book Night-shift. She is Director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, Honorary Consultant Psychotherapist of the Cape Town Child Guidance Clinic and President of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability.
