A Map of Days, 2013

Grayson Perry RA (b. 1960)

RA Collection: Art

Grayson Perry RA created this map of a walled city as a self-portrait for an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. He said 'I thought the walled city was a good metaphor - the wall, I suppose, can roughly be interpreted as your skin. But like any city, it's dependent on the landscape it sits in as well. That is the nature of the self - our identity only works in company.' In another statement about this work he added 'the "self" I think is not a single fixed thing but a lifelong shifting performance. In the centre is an open space; there is no pearl, no central core; our "selves" are but shifting layers of experience. My "sense of self" is a tiny man kicking a can down the road.'

Perry made the print and a tapestry during his Channel 4 series Who Are You? The print was loosely inspired by a map depicting John Bunyan's 1678 allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, but also resembles maps of sixteenth-century European walled cities more generally.