...buy more art

Having just returned from an exhibition of Fabian Perez's latest collection 'Into the Night', at a gallery in Cambridge, I was reflecting on my first foray into the art world. Sadly I'm not gifted artistically, with any vision I have for artistic projects being disproportionate to my ability, but I do love art.

I can still remember where and when it started; the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and I was 9. This iconic building houses must see paintings by many of the world's most famous artists, and after seeing Holbein's 'Henry VIII' and Hockney's 'Peter getting out of Nick's Pool', I was hooked (I'm wondering now were they hung in alphabetical order and I arrived in the H section?).

As nerdy as it was I spent many a Saturday afternoon looking endlessly at a single painting, and I totally got the scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off where Cameron stares at Seuret's 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jutte', but with no internet access if I wanted to know more about a particular artist I had to pay a visit to the library next door (another place I spent far too much time in as a kid).

I still have the first print I bought, a still life from Marks & Spencer, and it's a shocker. But I keep it because my grandmother gave me the money to buy it and it reminds me that this is where I started; it wasn't grand, or based on an informed opinion, I bought it because I liked it. And that's an approach that's stuck with me to this day.

Googling any artist returns all the information you could need to decide whether an artist is 'collectible' but whilst that may be good practice for an art collector with a must-have list of pieces, looking to invest money in a bid to offset tax liability, for me art remains about the sensory experience. The emotion it evokes each time you look at it. The memories it stirs when you talk about it. It's not about building a pension portfolio.

So tonight, whilst I gazed upon the sublime work of Fabian Perez, for a moment I was 9 years old again, full of admiration for the talents of one individual and filled with excitement that this time I would be taking a piece home with me to look at whenever I wanted to.

I left the gallery with a new painting, and the smallest of crushes on an Argentinian painter who may well be the next big thing, but as I don't plan on selling my copy of 'Calles de san Tellemos', that really is beside the point.