Kevin McCloud

I actually took them to China once and I was presented with five Chinese people who didn't speak English and I was me with no Chinese at all.

But they were exhibited in a deconsecrated Taoist temple and I had never hung an exhibition before.

I didn't know what I was doing.

I couldn't communicate with them.

So I just put all the purple ones in one room and all the orange ones in another room.

All the yellow ones.

It actually was great.

But the first time they went overseas was to the opening of the new Australian embassy in Paris.

And it was opened by Paul Keating.

And they hung the works from the ceiling.

And there are a hundred of them.

And as people walked through, because they're such fine silk, they must have been beautiful.

Yes, wafting.

That's such an interesting question.

The painting over on the wall behind us by Brian McKay, the one that looks a little bit like a Francis Bacon, and there's a great story about it because he painted about 20 pictures when he was in England and then realised how influenced he'd been by Francis Bacon.

Fortunately, that one had been sold, but he burnt the other.

And when the woman who bought it died, her daughter wrote to me and said, I know you've got a lot of Brian McKay's work.

Would you like this one?

So it was great that that one was saved.

But I once said to Brian, tell me what you really think art is.