Grayson Perry: Who are you?

This 50 minute episode was the first in a series and focused on Perry's interest in identity. Grayson Perry is a portrait artist who believes that portraits are 'distilling life in one image'. The aim of the show was to create portraits for 4 subjects and display them in the National Portrait Gallery. Grayson Perry pointed out that most of the portraits there are mainly white heterosexual men and he chose 'a parade of the unusual and the troubled in amongst these seemingly impervious icons of British solidity.' I liked how Perry wanted his subjects to be people 'experiencing the extremes of life' in order to do their portrait

I like how Perry decided to explore different types of people and how he wanted his work to stand out from the rest at the National Portrait Gallery. He chose his subjects based on gender, fame and religion. His first was Chris Huhne former cabinet minister whom Perry described as  a 'white middle aged, middle class man facing a collapse of status.' He wanted the portrait to reflect Huhne's bulletproof mask that he seems to wear in public and so the portrait was a vase smashed and then put back together to show his vulnerability.

He then met Rylan who he described as 'famous for being famous', and I liked how Grayson managed to get Rylans true opinions of himself out and Rylan realised that he changed himself so much and called himself 'all fake.' 

"I'm not really Rylan am I"

Grayson then went on to talk about how celebrities identities are heightened through the lens.

Kayleigh is a white woman Muslim convert whom Perry met to understand how identity can be transformed by religion. She was an unemployed single mother of four in her twenties. Grayson wanted his portrait to show a clash of civilisation between Islam and the modern world, such as shopping. He discussed how people buy their identies through designer brands and from shops whereas some people like Kayleigh get there identities

from their religion. His portrait of Kayleigh was a silk 

hijaab telling her story and those of 'western capitalists

 buying their identity.'

Perry then explored the modern metro sexual society and how people say they are accepting but really advertising suggests women should be feminine and wear high heels, whilst men need to have a six pack to be masculine. Jaz was born a girl but later became Alexander after feeling male from the age of 4. I think Perry was clever to visit a school and get young peoples opinions on the topic and discuss how it is easy to succumb to pressures and conform. He decided

 he wanted Jaz's portrait to be heroic as her transition

 was 'building an identity and not just surgery', 

therefore he wanted it to be a declaration of manhood.

Overall I really like all the finished portraits and I think he was clever in spending 18 months getting to know the people and their lives and then showing this through his work.I think the order of the programme was good as we met all of the subjects and learnt about them before we saw the final portrait. This way the audience went with Perry through his thought processes and how he ended up with the art work he did.