A transvestite Turner prize nominee returned to his roots to attend a mid Essex sculpture exhibition.

Controversial artist Grayson Perry, 43, came back to Chelmsford to see the 2003 Hylands Sculpture Exhibition which features some of his work.

The former Braintree College student is up for this year's Turner Prize which is widely regarded as one of the most important and prestigious awards for visual arts in Europe.

He is best-known for his ceramics work recently exhibited at London's Barbican Art Gallery and Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum and that is what has won him a Turner Prize nomination.

The cross-dressing potter calls himself Claire and satirises his Essex upbringing.

The subject matter of one of his vases, I Was an Angry Working Class Man 2001 presents images of manhood including motorbikes, pub signs and features an "emasculated Pit Bull Terrier, mascot of the stereotypical Essex Man."

Published Wednesday, June 11, 2003

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