3 British Artists - David Jones, Grayson Perry

1. David Jones - I think of David Jones as an Illustrator, but since he classes himself as an Artist (and I am struggling to whittle down which of my favourite Illustrators I want to use!) he's on this list. Jones is an ex-lecturer from Central Saint Martins, and is based in his lovely stone studio in his garden in Beaumaris. One part of why I love David Jones' work so much is because of just how much joy his work brings to people, and how much fun you can tell that he gets out of making it, and also my family are from Anglesey, visiting Jones' garden studio and listening to him talk about his work during the Beaumaris open studios around Easter is one of the big highlights of my year.

 These images are from his Angels on Washing Lines exhibition at Oriel Yns Môn in Llangefni. If these funny little wooden figures don't make you smile on their own, then the story behind them certainly will:

"The brief was to create a piece that made use of this space. My starting point was a memory I have from early childhood. I must have been in my grandmother’s back garden. She was telling me about heaven; that heaven was in the sky, and that God and the Angels lived there. When I looked up to the sky all I could see was her washing on the line; pyjamas, shirts etc. all gesticulating wildly in the wind. In my child’s mind I must have conflated the two ideas."

Quote and Images from: http://www.davidjonesartist.com/index.htm

2. Grayson Perry - Okay, so maybe this is a bit of an obvious choice, but there are few artists who have covered the peculiarities of Britishness as well as Grayson Perry has. This image is one of the tapestries from his series on the class system and how it affects us in the modern world - the characters he created in this series were stereotypes based around people he'd met from all kind of walks of life.

Image Source: My own photo, taken at the exhibition in the Victoria Miro, July 2012