Grayson Perry to unveil Brexit vases in Channel 4 show Divided Britain

The two vases made by Grayson Perry have so much in common, but are so far apart: they are identical in size and shape; are mostly blue; have images of teapots, bacon and eggs, families by the seaside, walking the dog, and going down the pub. But between them they represent the opposing sides of the most bitter political debate in a lifetime: Brexit.

“I asked people to send in their ideas for what should be included, what represented the whole thing to them, even what colour they should be, and they’ve come out surprisingly similar. I actually found it rather touching,” the artist said.

The monumental vases, which constitute a single work called Matching Pair, will be revealed on Channel 4 on Tuesday in Grayson Perry: Divided Britain. They will be unveiled in front of representatives from both sides of the EU referendum, neither of whom may not immediately find it easy to work out which vase is leave and which remain. Brexit is a Marmite issue, but when asked to suggest images of what they loved about Britain, both sides nominated Marmite, and when offered a choice of six colours, both chose blue.

The leavers’ top nomination was the NHS, while the remainers went for the John Lewis and Waitrose.

Perry included many of the images suggested by the members of the public who responded to his call. But there are some well known faces, too. Gary Lineker appears on the remainer vase. The footballer turned presenter tweeted on the day of the referendum result: “Feel ashamed of my generation. We’ve let down our children and their children.” Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage appears several times on the leavers’ vase, along with Winston Churchill, the Queen and Sir Francis Drake.

An image of Jo Cox, the Labour MP murdered in the run-up to the referendum, appears on the remainer’s vase, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Barack Obama, William Shakespeare and Gina Miller, who became the figurehead of the legal fight to allow parliament to vote on triggering the process to leave the EU.

Perry is pleased that viewers will have to work at identifying which vase is which. “I thought it would be an interesting experiment to make a work that involved, to use the fashionable term, crowdsourcing via social media. The two pots have come out looking remarkably similar, which is a good result, for we all have much more in common than that which separates us,” he said.

The artist, who says he is very much a remainer, added: “I could validly have included myself, but I chose to extricate myself from the whole thing.”

The vases will be included in an exhibition of his work at the Serpentine gallery in London. Entitled The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever! the show was planned to address issues of sex, class, religion, masculinity and the British cultural landscape a year after the EU referendum, but as it turns out will now open to the public on 8 June, the day of the general election.

The vases will be for sale. Perry said he had yet to work out a price, but warned “a lot. They took me five months’ work.”