Six Snapshots of Julie (colour)

by Grayson Perry, 2015

Series of 6 colour woodcuts.
Edition of 68. Each print signed by the artist on the front and numbered on the reverse.
Sheet size: 72.5 x 48.5 cm (28 1/2 x 19 1/8 in).

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I made six prints, one for each decade of Julie's life. The first one shows her as a young girl on Canvey Island, as it might have looked in the 1950s, with flimsy bungalows, telegraph poles and the refinery belching smoke in the distance. The second is her in a council estate in Basildon, a sexy young rock chick in her hot pants and boots, leaning on a motorbike - a premonition of her own death, perhaps. In the third scene, she's a young mother picnicking with her two kids in the park. That's my favourite image, because it captures the poignant trapped feeling of that situation. She was still in her relationship with Dave at the time, but there's a row of houses in the background and it's all a bit Larkinesque; I was very much trying to pick up on the atmosphere in Larkin's poem 'Afternoon' where he talks about the young parents in the park: 'Before them, the wind / Is ruining their courting-places [...] Something is pushing them / To the side of their own lives.'

The fourth image shows Julie with one of her workmates, out on the piss. It's like a photo-booth portrait of them from the time she's working as a social worker. The fifth print is a picture of her second wedding. Julie's got flowers in her hair, and both she and Rob are looking a bit dumpy and middle-aged by now. The final picture is her in front of the Taj Mahal, on one of their trips. When Rob finds that photo after her death, he remembers how he'd promised her that 'if she died / He would then grieve as deep as Shah Jahan / And build a Taj Mahal upon the Stour' - a promise which ends in this house being built as her shrine.

I used a set of these prints in black and white as wallpaper on the ceiling of the main room in the house. They are made from blocks cut by a computer-controlled router: they were the first woodcut prints I've ever made and I really like the effect of them.

Grayson Perry

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