Grayson Perry has had more material out of Britain’s political turmoil than probably any other artist but even he has had enough. “I’m officially a Bob now, Bored of Brexit,” he said.

“I just wash my hands of trying to have any kind of opinion about it, it just goes on and on,” he told the Guardian. “I have researched it and talked about it and thought about it an awful lot and I can understand how it happened. But it seems to me the people culpable still aren’t fessing up to it … I don’t think they’d like to do that.”

Perry was speaking ahead of the unveiling at the V&A of two Brexit vases he created in 2017 depicting leave and remain. Their similarity prompted the title, Matching Pair.

They have been acquired for the permanent collection and go on display in the museum’s ceramics galleries on Friday. “They are amazing pots which we just felt were too important not to bring into the collection,” said Alun Graves, the V&A’s senior curator of ceramics.

The making of the vases and the issues they address were explored in Channel 4’s 2017 documentary Grayson Perry: Divided Britain.

“I’ve got so much mileage out of Brexit, I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’ve had the TV programme, most of my Serpentine show had a bearing on it and I did a stage show all about it last year.

“We did think in November 2016 when we started filming, ‘will anyone be interested in Brexit in six months’ time?’”

Perry has been part of the cultural soundtrack to Brexit. It was while the TV series was on that an election was called and his Serpentine show, The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!, opened on polling day. The unveiling at the V&A was meant to coincide with Britain’s departure from the EU but clearly events have intervened.

The vases were made by crowdsourcing ideas, photographs and phrases via social media.

“People sent me their portraits and pictures of things they love about Britain and their favourite brands and famous people they identified with and shared their values with and their favourite colour,” said Perry. “Everything about the vases was nominally chosen by the audience.”

Both sides like Marmite, the colour blue, tea and David Bowie. “They did, as I predicted, end up looking quite the same,” Perry said. “Which is a good result, it shows that we all have much more in common than that which separates us.”

The leave vase includes images of Nigel Farage, Winston Churchill, Francis Drake and the Queen as well as a logo for Cadbury’s. The remain vase has an image of Jo Cox, the Labour MP murdered in the run-up to the referendum, as well as Mahatma Gandhi, Barack Obama, William Shakespeare, Gary Lineker, Waitrose and the NHS.

Perry said he made his final choices for aesthetic reasons. “In the end I wanted the vases to look attractive … and it was a struggle. God bless them. It is hard to make shaky camera shots of pubs and fried breakfasts into something beautiful.”

Grayson Perry’s Matching Pair. The leave pot (right), and the remain pot (left). Photograph: Channel 4/PA

The artist said he had always been wary of involving the public in his work. “Audience participation leads to disappointment on the whole,” he said.

“I think that’s fine. We are the professionals and the entertainers so it’s up to us to do the job really, we shouldn’t really ask the audience to do it.

“Also, and I’ve used this phrase for many years, democracy has terrible taste. However you see it.”

Perry, a remain supporter, said he was delighted the vases were going to the V&A. They were made collaboratively for “Britain’s mantelpiece”, he said.

“It’s brilliant, they couldn’t be in a better place. I love the fact they will be on permanent display as an artistic monument to our collective whatever you want to call it … madness? Or common sense? One of the two.”

The vases, both about a metre tall, have been acquired for an as yet undisclosed sum, although the museum got a good price.

“I don’t do it for free,” said Perry. “I’ve got to make a living. They took me the best part of four months to make. Big, very elaborate vases like that do take a long time and they are incredibly risky to make. These ones had about six or seven firings in the kiln.”