Grayson Perry's front cloth for English National Ballet's She Said programme, which runs at Sadler’s Wells from Wednesday 13 to Saturday 16 April 2016, has finally been revealed.
Tamara Rojo, Artistic Director of English National Ballet, said of the commission from Turner Prize-winner Perry, “I have been an admirer of Grayson's work for many years now, and I’m thrilled he’s creating a front cloth for English National Ballet. After seeing his exhibition, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British Museum, and his Channel 4 series In the Best Possible Taste and Who Are You? I thought he would be the perfect artist to create a response to our She Said programme.
"Grayson’s wonderful insight into different forms of identity made me believe he would create a truly inspiring piece of art. I am really grateful to him for agreeing to do this, and I am very excited to show his wonderful front cloth to our audience.”
Perry added, “as this trilogy of works called She Said hadn’t been created yet, a lot was left to my imagination. I thought about actually writing out what ‘she’ might have said but I am always one step away from being offensive so keeping it visual seemed safer.
"I wanted the curtain to look like a giant drawing on paper perhaps by an outsider artist, definitely not slick anyway. The central character is having three ideas that have something to do with the three ballets. She is in a landscape of phalluses. It is quite jolly and there is no rational explanation.”