If you’re living in a small space and want to keep it light, but yearn for a splash of colour, what better way to introduce a hint of the exotic, the cool or the whacky than with a piece of art – and what better place to look than the Affordable Art Fair. Now a staple of the English summer calendar, this year’s show is taking place near The Ponds on Hampstead Heath.

The Affordable Art Fair prides itself on making art accessible to ordinary chaps like you and me. With some pieces under a couple of hundred pounds, a maximum price cap of £5,000, and hundreds of exhibitors under one roof, you’re sure to find something to suit your taste and your pocket and some galleries even run a kind of pay as you go scheme for their more expensive works.

Of course, affordable is not the same as cheap, but then unlike most other things in our mass-produced world, it can take an artist weeks to paint a picture, cast a bronze or throw and glaze a pot, and with the exception of a print, it will take the same amount of time to create the next one. So you’re not only buying something that you love, but also something that has been created with love – and something that might prove to be an investment.

The London Affordable Art Fair runs from 11^th to 14^th June. If you’ve already missed that one, there’s another one coming up in Bristol in September and for the more adventurous, there will be a show New York, later this year. To check out what’s coming, check the Affordable Art Fair website.