Angus Fairhurst

Apr 2 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

HIS work was unlikely to be seen hanging between the Crying Boy and the ducks in flight on the lounge wall of your average semi.

But he was an artist just the same and a good looking dude, cool and elegant in his black leather jacket, resembling another former art school student, Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music.

The trouble was that, unlike his brash and commercially-alert contemporaries, Angus Fairhurst was tormented by self-doubt.

Inevitably his work came to the attention of the critics, resulting in some tosh being written about it, such as: “The new paintings are spatial schematics for imagined sites of desire. Occupied with the notion of terrain vague, the interstitial spaces that represent both disorder and opportunity in an urban environment that is increasingly standardised and regulated.”

The man himself was desc- ribed as witty and sensitive by his friends, and his celebrated bronze sculptures of gorillas brought him closer to popular recognition.

Although some of his ideas were obscure, his sense of humour was keen. On one occasion, he cross-wired the telephones between various galleries in London, so that he could record the ensuing gobbledegook.

Whether that is art or not can be debated until the ducks on the wall migrate. Called Gallery Connections, it is on show at Tate Britain.

Fairhurst was born in Pembury, Kent, and studied at Canterbury Art College and then Goldsmiths College, London, graduating in fine art in 1989.

Among his fellows at Goldsmiths were Damien Hirst, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas (“the Rude Girl of British Art”), whom he later dated.

He was one of the forces behind the 1988 Freeze exhib- ition of work by the new gener- aion of artists at a warehouse in the London docklands.

Billed as The Young British Artists, the group was championed by Charles Saatchi and some influential critics, while often outraging the public.

Although a close friend of Hirst, Fairhurst, an unmarried man, was quiet, more contemplative and unsure of his own talent, seeking to make statements with his offerings, shown in fine galleries including the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis; the Serpentine and the Royal Academy, London.

His latest exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ, London, finished the Saturday before his death.

Fairhurst was found hanging from a tree in a remote wood near Bridge of Orchy, in the Scottish Highlands.

Angus Fairhurst, artist; born October 4, 1966, died March 29, 2008.