The video art pioneer Nam June Paik said, 'An artist's job is to bite the hand that feeds him, but not too hard'. I wanted to make something which somehow embodied this tension between art and patronage. The cultural sector depends on the generosity of wealthy patrons more than it would like to admit. As well as buying lovely things for their homes, the wealthy also give a lot of financial support to public galleries and museums. In return they are rewarded with their name over the door or at the top of an invitation list, as well as the glow of virtue. But there is a parallel financial influence acting on the 'fine' arts. Rarified culture often feels the need to justify its public funding by hitching the pursuit of beauty to benevolent social causes. Of late, these social and political campaigns have sometimes overshadowed the role of art to deliver aesthetic pleasure. I imagined this tapestry as a seductive logo-wall, in front of which virtue-signalling aesthetes could advertise their good taste and their munificence.

Grayson Perry