Grayson Perry at the Koestler Arts Centre

In June 2007, the artist Grayson Perry spent 2 days with the Koestler team.  He was selecting around 200 of our 3,000 visual arts entries to make up “Insider Art”, the 2007 Koestler Exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.  He met later with the other selectors (Zelda Cheatle, Mike Philips and Mark Sladen) and joined in hanging the works at the ICA.  He also visited the Art Department at our neighbouring prison, HMP Wormwood Scrubs. 

We are delighted to announce that Grayson has agreed to join the judges for the Koestler Awards for painting from 2008.

Grayson Perry is famous for making ceramics, for being transvestite and for winning the Turner Prize in 2003.  He writes a regular column in The Times. His autobiography Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl (co-written by Wendy Jones) appeared in 2006.

Grayson Perry:- Looking round the entries to the Koestler Awards is like taking a tour through the collective subconscious.  Here are the concerns, hopes and obsessions of thousands of people. There’s a lot of beauty, and on the whole it’s unmediated by a screen of intellectualising and art history.  It’s raw and all the more powerful for that.

Joss Blake, Koestler Arts Co-ordinator:- I have worked at the Koestler Arts Centre for 4 years and one of the best things is the range of people who walk through the door. With Grayson Perry, I was expecting Lewis Caroll’s Alice, but instead a man arrived on an off-road motorbike. He was dressed in the kind of jumper you get for Christmas, jeans and Birkinstock sandals. Being a Birkinstock wearer myself, I immediately liked him, and to meet someone from the London art world so unpretentious was truly refreshing.

Like all our visitors, Grayson was amazed by the sheer volume of art here, and I could see he was captivated by its uninhibited nature. He was particularly drawn to the work from psychiatric hospitals – which is usually very free and natural. He said the standard was much higher than he had expected. I found he had very keen eye for spotting things that could easily be missed. I’m really looking forward to working with him again next year as one of our awards judges.

Grayson Perry at the Koestler Arts Centre

Grayson Perry with Joss Blake, Arts Co-ordinator

Dean Stalham, Koestler Arts Assistant:- In 2004 I was sentenced to three and a half years for handling stolen goods - specifically a large collection of contemporary art. All art meant to me then was pound notes.  Not any more it doesn’t, because during that sentence I discovered art for myself and won Koestler Awards for painting and play-writing.  Since being released, I’ve had a play produced and started working at Koestler.

When we heard Grayson Perry would be coming, it sent an immediate buzz round the Koestler team – and I knew that buzz would be going round prisons across the country.  It’s fantastic to have such a successful artist turn his attention to art by offenders. 

Meeting him in person, he didn’t disappoint.  Here was a man you could identify with – complex, but down to earth and very, very honest about art. “How do you know when you are being taken seriously as an artist?”, I asked him.  His reply: “Dean, when people are looking at your work and the ‘hmmms’ become ‘HMMMs’, that’s when you know.  And that is when you start to get the recognition you deserve.”

Grayson Perry at the Koestler Arts Centre
Grayson Perry at the Koestler Arts Centre

Grayson Perry at the Koestler Arts Centre
Grayson Perry with “Super Nova” batik from St Mary’s Kenmure

Grayson Perry at the Koestler Arts Centre
Grayson Perry at HMP Wormwood Scrubs