Map Of Days
Map Of Days
Signed Print
Grayson Perry
Etching, 2013
Signed Print Edition of 68
H 110cm x W 150cm
Critical Review
This signed etching from 2013 is a limited edition of 68 from Grayson Perry’s Maps collection. The print shows a map of a walled city whose contours are well demarcated through Perry’s use of a bold thick line. Around the city, the surrounding landscape is composed of isolated castles, interconnected roads and cultivated fields, each carefully labelled by the artist.
The print was created for an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and in conjunction with Perry’s show on Channel 4 Who Are You, and was loosely inspired by a map present in John Bunyan’s 1678 The Pilgrim’s Progress. Map Of Days, like different other maps created by Perry (Map Of An Englishman or Map Of Nowhere), is a metaphorical self-portrait of the artist, who once again opens himself and his inner psyche to his viewer. At the centre of the walled city, an unlabelled central space signifies the lack of a central core of identity, which Perry understands as always relational, ever-changing and in flux, shaped by the manifold experiences human beings go through. Here then Perry names Culture and Art, but also Tradition, as external factors influencing the artist.
In Map Of Days, also produced in blue, the artist once again resorts to the trope of traditional and antique cartography to chart and map the coordinates of his own identity, all in the while bringing together a wide range of art historical references.
