I’ve always tried to deliver a rich, dense kind of work. I don’t make soufflés of elegance. My work is slow and laboured, and I want people to feel the man hours that have been involved. I think the days and days it takes to make a work are important, and often underrated.
The Vanity of Small Differences consists of six tapestries that portray the nature of a modern Britain in terms of class and taste. ‘Nothing has such a strong influence on our aesthetic taste as the social class we grow up in’, believes Grayson Perry. This project centres on emotional investment people make in the things they choose to live with, wear, ear, read or drive.
Perry designed the tapestries as part of a BAFTA-winning documentary series he made with Channel 4 in 2012, called ‘All in the Best Possible Taste’, in which Perry visited three very different regions of England, exploring the taste of the different social groups he encountered.
The fascinating observations Grayson Perry made on his journey provide a compelling, snap-shot of modern Britain. Middle class angst, ‘old money’ snobbery and a community shattered by job losses and industrial decline all come under Perry's scrutiny.