The body of Angus Fairhurst was found on Saturday afternoon in a remote woodland area in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It seems certain that Fairhurst took his own life, aged 41. (The Independent)
A spokesperson for Strathclyde Police said: “The body of a 41-year-old man was found within woodland near Inveroran Cottage in Bridge of Orchy at around 4pm on Saturday. At this time, there appear to be no suspicious circumstances.”
Saturday was the day that Fairhurst’s solo show at Sadie Coles Gallery in London closed. As one of the sixteen Goldsmiths College students who took part in the infamous “Freeze” exhibition of 1988, spearheaded by Damian Hirst, he was an exstablished figure in the so-called YBAs.
Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of Tate Galleries in Britain, which owns seven of Fairhurst’s works, said the artist has always been “deprecating about his own talent […] But he made some of the most engaging, witty and perceptive works of his generation and was an enormously influential friend of other British artists who came to prominence in the early Nineties.”
Damian Hirst, a close friend of Fairhurst, commented, “He always supported me, in fair weather and foul. He shone like the moon and as an artist he had just the right amount of slightly round the bend. I loved him.”