Grayson Perry’s portrait from the edge – The New European

Is there a single defining image of Brexit? The one that stands out for me is not of a victorious Nigel Farage with arms aloft on referendum night, or border queues or empty shelves. Its of what its photographer describes as a Brexit Statue of Liberty figure the first thing you see when you approach Great Britain by sea this wonderful middle-aged man in a dress and a bonnet waving at you while holding a union jack, welcoming you to the promised land.

The picture of Grayson Perry features in Muse, a new book that collects a decades worth of images of the artist-broadcaster-national treasure by award-winning photographer Richard Ansett. We were planning the shoot at a time of horror, extraordinary tension after the referendum, and I was thinking of a set piece about cliches of Britain like the White Cliffs of Dover and how to open up ideas of what Britishness can be, he says. But how do you sum that up in one picture? And as the idea developed it became so good that I couldnt have taken the heartbreak if it didnt come off. I was saying: If we dont do this, Im going to burn peoples houses down sorry, everyone dies unless we do this.

Grayson said yes, and so I had this amazing gift of his persona to temper the rabid nationalism and the toxicity of the union flag. And of course, we had a literal cliff edge. And the place we shot it, Seven Sisters cliffs on the South Downs is a suicide spot it is literally at the spot where people jump. The shoot was fantastic. Theres Grayson in his handmade dress, with a 2 union jack that I stuck into his hand. At that time, it just was extraordinary to be there with this wild cackling genius of an artist coming over the hill in his dress and bonnet.

Perry calls the book a mix of ridiculous fantasy and crumpled reality which might sum up Brexit almost as well as that photograph. As the subject I look at these photographs with joy in that they are funny and delightful and horror in knowing that I am that raddled old trannie, he adds.

For Ansett, whose subjects have included female prisoners at HMP Foston Hall, the first same-sex couples to obtain civil partnerships in London and child survivors of Grenfell Tower and the Manchester Arena bombing, the book is not just a collection of photographs of one man, but an opportunity to examine what the hell has been going on between him and me and us all over the last 10 years.

There are memorable images that evoke the surreality of Donald Trumps White House years (a triumphal Perry in a gingham dress with a Harley-Davidson and the stars and stripes behind him) and the dilemmas posed by gender-based culture wars (Perry as the Madonna, with child). Created in part to promote the artists successful Channel 4 documentary series, they serve as beautiful, simple echoes of the themes he explores in his pottery and epic tapestries.

Ansetts pictures also chart a decade in which he says Perry, who won the Turner Prize in 2003 but was then far from a household name, has seeped into the national consciousness in a way few British artists have ever managed. The dresses and makeup help, of course, but so does Perrys inquisitiveness about those he might naturally be at odds with, as seen on those documentaries, and the generosity of spirit he displays in the Graysons Art Club TV show, which became a lockdown sensation. Having sold out large theatres on a recent tour, he seems to be easing past the status of an easily recognisable eccentric like Gilbert & George and is approaching the ubiquity of a British Warhol or Dal.

I think hes increasingly sort of national treasure material, rather than this sort of obscure, complex existential artist that no one fully quite gets, says Ansett. I think Art Club, which was very warm and comforting and joyful, offered support to people when they needed it and Graysons humility and humanity has made this person who is clearly different accepted by the mainstream.

Ansetts first images of Perry, taken before the artists Reith Lecture at Tate Modern in 2013, show him in a blood-red womblike room. Grayson is clutching his handbag, hes looking at me with horror because hes expecting to be given direction, but Im not speaking to him. Someone described that picture as him looking like he was being mugged at a cashpoint. It went into the National Portrait Gallery more or less straight away, a huge chance for a photographer. And it made me think, well, what do I do next with this guy? Whats next right now is a project for Londons Wallace Collection, involving Perry as a Victorian ghost.

There must be a reason why he keeps asking me back, continues Ansett. His wife Phillippa is a psychotherapist and Ive done Gestalt therapy and been a Samaritan for 20 years, so thats one link. And I do think that we have a common interest in British society and real people, like my photographs of the children of Grenfell Tower and things like that. But when I photograph him we dont sit around discussing psychology. Its a fun event; as soon as youve got the camera out he just becomes this spirit of chaos, spirit of joy, shouting and flying around and putting costumes on.

Muse: A Portrait of Grayson Perry by Richard Ansett is available now from ACC Art Books, price 40

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Grayson Perry's portrait from the edge - The New European