Collector's homes always seem to have a big expensive abstract painting as the centrepiece in the living room. Collectors love paintings: they are the most recognised currency in the art market. Figurative images have less universal appeal, so non-figurative art is highly tradable, widely accepted asset class. So for my 2019 exhibition at Victoria Miro Gallery all about collectors, I thought, I've got to make my own version of that.

I wanted the work to look like an American Colour Field painting. It's a computer-controlled weaving that virtually mimics the hands-on process of the sticky, smelly painter. I started by digitally sewing together a load of traditional fabrics from around the world - Indian, African, Middle Eastern - like a patchwork. Over the top I've digitally splodged the oh-so-expressive 'paint', adapted from bits of other abstract paintings which I cut out and blobbed together.

It's a sort of map of London, with the Thames going through the middle. I got virtual newspaper and pasted it on, writing phrases with virtual marker pen that I thought had a sense of class privilege: elite university, unregulated market, yoga mat, modern slavery, non-doms, watch collection, shell companies, private-school, interns, capital gains, shareholder value, knowledge economy, breastfeeding, double income, nanny. All these signals build up a picture of a certain lifestyle you become aware of it you go west of Marble Arch. It's about the layers of London society, the ethnic fabrics of the rich, cosmopolitan mix of the city, with the paint as money. It's an abstract painting, but it's also a relatively straightforward political piece.

I like the idea that when you see it first at the other end of a big room, you think 'Oh, big abstract painting', and then you get closer to it and the layers reveal themselves. I had a group of collectors round to the studio, and I mentioned the title: it got a big laugh. Afterwards, a bloke came up to me quite sheepishly and said, 'I'm one of those people that's got a large expensive abstract painting.' Targets in sight!

Grayson Perry