Craigie Aitchinson

Last week I was lucky enough to attend London Art Fair. I left feeling I would like to buy some art, which I would. But I also left with this strange notion that five hundred pounds is quite cheap really, I guess that happens when you're wandering around seeing four and five number sums tacked onto things. Needless to say that notion wore off pretty sharpish and I've decided instead to pilfer as much art made by my chums as possible. Hear hear!
The best thing I found was Craigie Aitchison, who I didn't know about before.

I like the sparseness his work.

And the fact that he doesn't layer paint, all the objects seem to be slotted into their own gap in the background.

Which help make the colours jump about.

Sadly he died in 2009. Bloomsbury auctions are selling off his estate and had a special room at the fair with some of his possessions alongside his work, which was a wonderful thing.

All the objects were laid out, and it was so nice to see how the objects fed into his work, sometimes very literally.


I thought this cupboard was brilliant, gloss pink with white accents and a red tassle - and best of all it was very badly painted, most heartening. Seeing the toot of inspiring people is a wonderful thing.
The sale happened yesterday, maybe I should have gone because some of the things had five hundred pound estimates on, and that's not much really . . .