Map Of Nowhere (purple)

This map draws from a vast historical tradition of map-making and cartography. Using various art-historical references within most of his works, Perry admitted to having taken inspiration from 16th-century Dutch maps of this series of works. However, the reference here is even more specific, insofar as the mapping of the depiction onto the artist’s own body takes from a religious Christian tradition of mapping the world onto the body of Christ. Taking as his own departure point the Ebstorf Map, a German medieval Mappa Mundi destroyed to the Hanover bombing of 1943, Perry focuses his depiction on portraying his “internal states”. Making use of a variety of symbols, the Map intriguingly draws the viewer into a complex self-portrait of the artist. Using words such as “doubt”, “hubris” and “post-ironic sincerity”, the artist hints at his contradictions and lays himself bare to the viewer with sincerity, irony and originality.

Rather than a real topography, Map Of Nowhere represents a portrayal of Perry’s identity in all of its polarising and competing aspects, a trope the artist used time and time again in pieces like Map of An Englishman.

The highest value realised for a work by Grayson Perry was in October 2017, when I Want To Be An Artist fetched £632,750 at Christie's, London. The values achieved for Perry's work at auction regularly land in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.