Appearances can be deceptive. My first meeting with portrait painter Jonathan Yeo is not at the sort of place he would take his eminent subjects. Tony Blair, William Hague, Nicole Kidman and Dennis Hopper had their sittings in his light-filled Chelsea studio, but our 9am appointment is in a basement porn shop in Soho. Here, among a profusion of genitalia, vibrators and the type of potions advertised on spam e-mails, we begin our interview.

Walking up to a rack of magazines, Yeo explains how he selects his favoured publications. “This magazine, Fifty Plus, is good for older flesh tones, and Big Black Butt is helpful for areas of light and shade. I also like Readers’ Wives and some of the naturist magazines because the skin is realistic, rather than cosmetically tanned.”

Yeo’s interest in the quality and colour of skin tones, rather than the revealing intimacy of the pictures, started with his irreverent portrait of George W. Bush. From a distance the artwork looks like a painting, but on closer examination you see that it is a collage. And further study reveals that the collage is made from some less commonly viewed parts of the anatomy, and that his left ear is fashioned from something more commonly found in the front of a pair of Y-fronts. The Bush portrait, and an admiration for the craft of collage, inspired Yeo to create a series of 12 new artworks that go on show this week. “The irony is that you become oblivious to the subject matter. I usually look at the magazines upside down because it makes it easier to see shape and colour,” he says.

Back in his clean white studio, Yeo tells of his love of making things. “Tabitha, our four-year-old daughter, ‘designed’ this cardboard spaceship and told me how it should be constructed,” he says, pointing out the felt pen-drawn windows and headlights. “I order things online that are delivered in boxes, and these are the materials with which we build. Sheba [his wife, actress Sheba Ronay] comes downstairs to find me with Tabitha and [one-year-old] Yasmin in a snowstorm of polystyrene balls and cardboard-box castles, prams or whatever we’ve just made,” he enthuses. “My work during the week is precise and detailed so I love the freedom of making transient, disposable things quickly.”

Another thing his daughters have revived is his delight in Batman. “We watch the Sixties programmes together, the version designed in primary colours with graphics illustrative of that time – the whole thing is experimental and ‘trippy’. More recent interpretations are dark, metropolitan and sinister, whereas in the Adam West era the costumes were ill-fitting and it was all more innocent. I still have my childhood Batman cars.”

Another much treasured childhood possession is a Sony hi-fi and radio system. “My dad [Tory MP Tim Yeo] bought this in the Seventies when it was cutting-edge technology. I play music when I am working at the studio, usually classical or operatic music that I’m not familiar with; if I know the tune my mind pictures things with which it is connected, and that is distracting.

“I have painted Grayson Perry twice and I love talking to him – he’s brilliantly provocative and amusing. When Sheba and I were married we came across a gold painted box among our presents. It didn’t have a label and I was worried that we wouldn’t know who it was from. But when we opened it, it was a vase from Grayson with paintings of me, Sheba and Tabitha and a verse of poetry. It is so personal and by far the best piece of art I own.”

A portrait of tailor Ozwald Boateng resulted in a trade for two bespoke suits. “I did the painting about ten years ago when I couldn’t afford a suit, so we arranged a ‘swap’. There is something about the fit of a suit made especially for you – it’s so comfortable it’s as though you’re not wearing it. I also love the vivid pink and purple linings.”

Two further cherished items are an articulated chameleon-type creature and a poster. “I found the lizard in an art shop. I hadn’t seen a creature like this before and I liked the idea that so many people were drawing reptiles or dinosaurs that there was a demand for it.” Of the Thirties poster for the Côte d’Azur, he says, “I love this style of advertising: it is from a time when it conveyed happiness and excitement. Now advertising seems to appeal to our inadequacies; it makes people feel bad about themselves.”

The poster, like Yeo’s own collages, has layers of meaning, some instantly recognisable, others more discreet, and some disguised. Appearances can be deceptive.

Blue Period is at the Lazarides gallery, 8 Greek Street, London W1 until July 11 (020-3214 0055; www.lazinc.com)

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