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Grayson Perry is good in a crisis. He wrote a book about the crisis in masculinity. When Brexit first happened, he was straight on Channel 4 with a thoughtful documentary exploring what unites Brexiteers and Remainers. A few days into the UK lockdown, he contributed his ideas to an art activity pack to help frustrated children (and adults) pass the time through creative tasks.
Now he’s back on our screens to help tackle the nation’s boredom with ‘Grayson’s Art Club’, a six-part series starting on Monday which will encourage viewers to make art at home. Each episode is filmed in Grayson’s studio and will be themed around isolation. The first week is all about portraits. Perry will be enlisting help from guests to talk about ‘how they are dealing with the weirdness’. For Monday’s episode there will be an appearance from figurative artist Chantal Joffe and comedian Joe ‘doth butter no parsnips’ Lycett, who has recently taken up portrait painting.
Future episodes will feature artists Maggi Hambling and Antony Gormley, as well as comedians Harry Hill and Vic Reeves. Most importantly, YOU could appear on the show. Everyone is invited to submit their artworks – all mediums are welcome – and Perry will select his favourites to appear on screen. The deadline for the first episode has passed, but you can still send entries for the next one, which is on the theme of animals, until midnight tonight (Thursday April 23). All you need to do is take a photograph of the artwork and film a video (less than three minutes long) of yourself talking about it.
As is usually the case with a Grayson Perry TV show, the whole thing will culminate with a large-scale exhibition featuring work from Perry, his guests and the general public. If you always wanted to see your paintings exhibited alongside a Perry pot, now’s your chance.
The first episode of ‘Grayson’s Art Club’ airs on Channel 4 on Mon Apr 27 at 8pm.
Want to contribute to another exhibit? The Museum of London is now collecting items from lockdown.
Check out this new environmental Instagram artwork from Olafur Eliasson.