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Suburban housewives in tweed coats appear, as well as Barbie dolls, motorbike racers, crying mummy’s boys, toy soldiers and crucified pin-ups. For those interested in the roots of Perry’s transvestism, gender stereotypes abound; there’s a sense in these early works — fantasy collages all — of the artist desperately trying to work out his sexuality on paper. Perhaps the most striking image is of Perry dressed as Margaret Thatcher, in pink power-suit and matching handbag, his demure facial expression offset by a blood-spattered backdrop.
Perry stopped sketching once his career as a ceramicist took off, only returning to it, for fun, in the late 1990s as a way of passing time with his new daughter Flo. His fondness was reignited, and he says he hasn’t stopped since.
The bulk of the book comprises Perry’s preparatory sketches for his successful works of recent years — such as his tapestry series ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’, which charts the chequered progress of a self-made millionaire through the British class system. From very personal politics in the early images, we now see Perry turning his attention societal.
The trouble is that there is little one takes from these sketches that we didn’t already from the finished works. Perry is no draughtsman in the league of, say, Rembrandt or Ingres, whose sketches are compelling artworks in their own right rather than simply staging-posts en route to a final product. There’s no thrilling encounter here with an artist in neat, raw or intimate form.
Given Perry’s lust for the limelight, this book feels rather an unnecessary intrusion on the cultural landscape on his part and, at £40, rather an unnecessary expenditure on ours.
Because you read about book review
Also by Alastair Smart
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