FLAMBOYANT sculptor Grayson Perry has been knighted in the New Year Honours list.

The 62-year-old artist, writer and broadcaster, who is known for his tapestries, ceramic works and cross-dressing, has been made a Knight Bachelor for services to the arts.

Essex-born Sir Grayson, who calls himself a “tranny potter”, often explores fashion, conformity and prejudice in his work and appears in public as his female alter-ego, Claire.

He spends hours meticulously making vases, which at a distance look like ornaments, and are covered in words and sometimes graphic images depicting his own past or railing against society.

Born in Chelmsford, Sir Grayson began his career at Braintree College of Further Education and then at Portsmouth Polytechnic, where he studied fine art.

He received an honorary degree from Colchester Institute in 2012 and in 2015 opened the House for Essex, or Julie’s house, a secular chapel to the memory of a fictional Essex woman.

The ornate ceramic-clad, gingerbread-like edifice overlooks the Stour Estuary at Wrabness Sir Grayson has also staged an exhibition at Colchester’s Firstsite gallery celebrating the life of Essex every woman Julie Cope.

Sir Grayson first came to fame when he won the Turner Prize in 2003 after being nominated for the piece Claire’s Coming Out Dress and a collection of vases depicting the dark recesses of life.

The pots are covered with subject matter such as child abuse, autobiographical images of himself, Claire and his family, as well as examinations of cultural stereotypes.

In 2012, Sir Grayson produced a set of six huge tapestries to accompany a Bafta-winning Channel 4 series called All In The Best Possible Taste With Grayson Perry, about British taste.

In 2014, he became a CBE after an investiture by the then Prince of Wales, now King, and wore what he called his “Italian mother of the bride” outfit for the occasion where he was recognised for services to contemporary art. He said at the time, the recognition was for “30 years of hard graft”.

In his 2016 Channel 4 programme Grayson Perry: All Man, the dress-wearing artist put himself in three ultra-male worlds to see what their masculinity explained about the changing lives and expectations of men in modern Britain.

Other Channel 4 programmes include Why Men Wear Frocks, Grayson Perry’s Big American Road Trip, Rites of Passage, Divided Britain, and Who Are You?