Alex James: My favourite work of art (and what it says about Angus Fairhurst)

Sometimes it takes a shock to reveal the blindingly obvious. I've suddenly realised that there are only two kinds of people: the ones that make you feel better and the ones that make you feel worse. It's a shame, but as far as I can tell, most people make you feel worse. Some are deliberate shits, but most of them can't help it. It's important to hang on to the ones that make you feel better. And that's not as obvious or easy as it sounds.

My favourite work of art, ancient or modern, is only my favourite because every time I look at it, it makes me feel better. I'm not kidding. It's a photograph of a man in a warehouse, all in black and white apart from the big square he's holding, which is dayglo yellow. Underneath the photograph it says, "When I woke up in the morning, the feeling was still there." I decided a while ago it was my favourite picture.

For years it hung outside the upstairs bogs in the Groucho Club and caught my eye. Eventually, I pointed it out to people. It had a particular resonance at the Groucho in the Nineties, where so many dreams were cast in bubbles that burst before the sun rose again, but a copy hung in Downing Street too, and I wonder what it meant there. It's an image that could wear more or less any room: A letter to hope.

Related articles

• Artist behind 1990s boom 'commits suicide'
• Tracey Emin: My Life In A Column
• Angus Fairhurst: Founding member of the YBAs
• Search the news archive for more stories

My wife knew how much I loved the picture. As is often the case these days, it was made as an edition and the year before last, for my birthday, she got me a copy of it. It's the only artwork I've ever really wanted to own, so my art collection was complete, instantly. When my elation subsided, I realised we couldn't possibly afford it. We live on a farm and have a permanently long and practical shopping list.

"It's a present," she said.

"I know; it's the best present I've ever had, but we still can't afford it."

"No it's a present from Angus. He said he knows how much you like it and he wanted you to have it."

Angus Fairhurst is the artist. What a generous gift. What a good bloke. What a picture!

I was struggling with the seasonal jetlag the other morning, unable to wake up even after being playfully punched repeatedly in the face by the four-year-old while the twins poked tiny fingers in my nose, ears, mouth and eyes. My wife came into the bedroom dressed up for London and broke down. "Angus Fairhurst killed himself yesterday," she said, and I was suddenly awake. There were tears streaming down her face and she couldn't sit down. She was very fond of him. She'd been to a show of his a couple of weeks ago and it sounded like his career was going from strength to strength. What had driven him to despair? We'd recently invited him to come and stay for a weekend: The things that run through one's mind. I'd said I was going to send him some cheese. I hadn't, I realised all of a sudden.

I was talking to a trustee of the Tate a few weeks ago. "Surely it's all over now," I said. "You start off with The Beatles and you end up with Herman's Hermits. We seem to have started off with Damien and ended up with Banksy. Time to go home and do something else, surely?" She countered, declaring the ever-rising British art bubble a cultural phenomenon unparalleled since the Medici era. That might have sounded corny coming from an art dealer, but trustees tend to be quite sober. She truly believed it, anyway.

It might be true. Only time will tell the historical significance, but it is certain that over the past 20 years it has been in the art world that all the most interesting things have happened, culturally. Those people were the most interesting people to get drunk with, the most stimulating company. By the Nineties, there was no mountain that hadn't already been conquered by a rock band. The music industry was established; its boundaries drawn, formalised and open only to reiterations.

The circle of artists that burgeoned around Damien Hirst have made the most significant contribution to taking the here and now into the middle of next week. Damien and Angus were close friends. Bands tended to copy each other, but those two inspired each other. Angus was an unassuming but vital part of the magnificent mushroom cloud of creativity of the Nineties: Sarah Lucas's boyfriend for many years, a fixture at every opening, a general in the army of new crusaders. He leaves a huge, gaping hole.

The dreadful story unfolded all day. Angus had gone to Scotland alone with a ladder and a rope that he'd handwoven in silk, climbed the ladder and hanged himself on the rope in a meticulously planned grisly piece of theatre.

It sounds like he'd recently sent postcards to a lot of people he knew. I don't know if I was his friends or not. I liked him, of course, he is my favourite artist, but I wonder if I made him feel better or worse. I owed him one and I wanted to pay him back.

There was a postcard. I can see it from where I'm sitting now, pinned to the wall, peeking out behind the holiday booking confirmation and a pink octopus.

In the photo on the front of the postcard, a large comic gorilla is cradling a limp, naked Angus. It's a funny picture, even now. Angus, the bogeyman – a big cuddly monster and a pale, skinny artist, apparently in sleep, fighting the good fight. First, I look at the postmark. It says June. Can he have been considering his fate even then? I can kind of remember what the postcard said, but it's going to read very differently now. He'd signed off with "You really are one Hell of a lucky bastard." And a kiss.

The dayglo square in the picture that says "When I woke up in the morning, the feeling was still there" reads differently now, too. Angus! You idiot. You were better than all of them.