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Artist Quotes by Grayson Perry

37 Artist quotes by Grayson Perry

All Artist quotes Grayson Perry’s page

Grayson Perry claims that an artist’s job is to create fresh clichés and to keep making art accessible without dumbing it down. He describes art as a process of expression, trial, and improvement, especially in a media‑saturated world. He also warns that originality is hard to find and that artists often fight over the last unique brushstroke.

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Art is not some fun add-on to life.

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Anything can be art but very little is good art.

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We learned how to look at art from religion.

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To appreciate art you’ve got to work at it a bit.

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“An artist's job is to make new clichés.”

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I always think that painters are fighting over the last original brushstroke. To find your own voice is incredibly hard.

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Nothing frustrates me about the art world. It is a lovely place. There are many daft things that amuse me about it…

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I've got a pot in my studio that is just a bitter rant against the art world. I call it my Dorian…

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Beauty and seriousness are perhaps the most shocking tactics left to artists these days.

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I cant make art to please everybody all the time. I make art that I like.

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Im a maximalist, so Im probably not very elegant. My art is not a coup de grce. Its a war of attrition.

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I tick so many boxes. Thats why I get a lot of gigs - because I can do the lectures, I can…

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I think sometimes in the art world theres an implication that you need an entry-level education to walk through the door of…

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Artists should imprint their handwriting on the work, because if they give a piece to a fabrication studio, the craftsmen there may…

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In the art world, originality is seen as a precious commodity and its increasingly difficult to get because the territory of art…

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Security and care of the objects is paramount. Arty composition comes after everything is safe from greasy fingers, humidity or excess light.

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We live in a media saturated world. I'm sure artists of the past would have dealt with it in just the same…

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And it's been one of my big sort of campaigns throughout my career, really, is to sort of make art accessible but…

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Desmond Morris says that men make better artists because they are greater risk-takers; on the other hand, he thinks that women are…

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Part of being an artist is that you are achingly self-conscious about every aesthetic decision you make, and taste is at its…

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Contemporary art often plays to the part of us that is very uncomfortable with not being sure, that cannot maintain a state…

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I embrace the middle ground, because curiously it has more edge to it than the cutting edge. It has been a weirdly…

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Until we can insert a USB into our ear and download our thoughts, drawing remains the best way of getting visual information…

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How art works is really interesting. It comes from our unconscious, a lot of it. And were communicating in ways were not…

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As human beings, we are addicted to novelty. Part of being stylish is surprisingness. Part of being an artist is surprisingness. If…

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It is true that there are not many smiling faces in modern art galleries. Happy art is much harder to make. Art…

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I was once judging some prisoner art, and you wouldnt believe the number of eagles and tigers and symbols of freedom and…

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I like the idea of my art being a covetable object; I like preciousness. A lot of art seems to flaunt its…

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As an artist I'm very aware of what I call Picasso-napkin syndrome - I've got this 20th century version of the midas…

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There are some very unsavoury aspects of art dealing that go with the unregulated nature of the market but its all part…

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I hate it when people say that art shouldnt be a commodity. A lot of the rooms in museums, and all the…

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Drawing will never go out of date because, you know, you've still got to have the imaginative thought. You've got to react…

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If you want to be successful in the art world you've got to look to the art world; you don't make it…

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Art is a process. Its expressing yourself and doing something, and throwing yourself into it and getting better at it and trying…

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Early on, my way of teasing the art world was by playing at being accessible. Like making pottery: I thought people would…

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Self-consciousness is almost the biggest thing you have to deal with as an artist. That's why many artists crash and burn, because…

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The art world would have you believe that anything can be art. But, of course, there's actually many things that aren't art.…

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More by Grayson Perry

“Because I am a transvestite, people often assume that this gives me a special insight into the opposite gender. But this is rubbish: how…

We have this idea that seriousness is of higher value. But surely there is more human pleasure and delight in time spent with humour…

“An artist's job is to make new clichés.”

Well, within my business, visual art, the intake is 75 per cent female and yet you look at who has showed their work and…

For me, earnestness is the greatest crime an Englishman can commit.

And it's been one of my big sort of campaigns throughout my career, really, is to sort of make art accessible but without dumbing…

The basic premise of taste, as Stephen Bayley, the cultural critic, said, is that taste is that which does not alienate your peers. Most…

Well, intellectual importance is directly linked to financial value in the art world. I mean, thats the thing you really want - museum quality.…

Some people will have working-class, front-room grandma taste that is better than other people's. I went to stately homes that are a bit duff,…

You cant be an artist without going to art school. Its impossible. Art schools like being plunged into a sheep dip that inoculates you…

You don't work in a vacuum. If you're a visual artist you work in a visual culture. If you're a pop musician you listen…

I was very excited when the Holburne Museum proposed a show of my ceramics from the 80s and early 90s as it would also…

My tapestries are woven on a computer-controlled loom. I design them on Photoshop. I recently did some digitally-routed woodcuts because I wanted the woodcut…

I haven't been to Oxbridge. I haven't even been to a London art school. My qualifications are pretty meagre for such a brief, but…

Art is a process. Its expressing yourself and doing something, and throwing yourself into it and getting better at it and trying again. Thats…