CHOOSING a piece of contemporary art can be a precarious business. Like deciding on a good wine, it is a balancing act between taste and affordability. And perhaps, in the case of the Glasgow Art Fair which starts today, the sharpness of your elbows. Last year an estimated 16,000 art enthusiasts descended on the fair's white tented pavilions in George Square, and more than £1.1m worth of art was sold over the four days. Doors open at 10.30am today until 6.30pm on Sunday, and organisers are confident this year's event will be the most successful so far.

Yet with work by more than 1000 contemporary artists on display, where do you start looking for your next, or indeed first, piece of art? Bear in mind, too, that some 43 galleries from around Europe are exhibiting a wealth of works by some of the most sought-after artists in their field, including Scottish painter and author Alasdair Gray, who brings a new suite of seven screenprints to the show.

So when it comes to value for money or choosing a smart investment, whose work should you look for before the masses beat you to it?

We've done some of the hard work for you and selected five affordable artists to look out for this year. Here's the lowdown...

Artist: Catriona Millar
Age: 50
Lives: Aberdeen
Trained: Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen
Gallery: Riverside Gallery, Aberdeenshire
Stand number: 23
Price range: £450-£7000
In Millar's second year of exhibiting in her native city, she takes a collection of new work to George Square. Having won the support of Charles Saatchi with her sell-out degree show at Gray's School of Art in 2005, Millar's stock is rising. Two years ago, her collection of 400 paintings was sold in under two hours.

Millar's work is predominantly in oils. She exhibits a bold style which captures the energy of her subjects using a textured approach.

"For me, the art fair is a kind of homecoming in which all of my family and friends can see my work," says Millar.

"I've created a series of work especially for the art fair - a collection of about a dozen works, based on contemplation and reflection. I took this opportunity to explore different colours and patterns. These pieces are a real development in my work."

Denis Leiper, of the Riverside Gallery, describes Millar's style as nostalgic. "In many respects, her work reminds me of my childhood," he says.

"A similarity runs through her pictures because many of the images are partly of herself. There are real, slight, almost childlike features in her art."

Millar's paintings are very colourful. Leiper continues: "They speak of a time when girls used to wear floral dresses and ribbons in their hair. We've been in this business for 25 years now, and she has one of the most distinctive styles of work I have ever seen."

Since last year's art fair, Millar has exhibited work at galleries in Barcelona, Montreal and Japan.

Artist: Anna Howarth
Age: 43
Lives: Cornwall
Trained: University of Salford
Stand number: 28
Gallery: Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London
Price Range: £450-£2000
Howarth specialises in paper cut works, drawing on Celtic and Northern European mythology and fairy tales for her inspiration. Initially trained in painting, Howarth moved to paper cut after being influenced by the Flemish discipline of layering different coloured paper, folding it then drawing over it before cutting out intricate shapes.

"Anna's works are mainly of gardens, trees, plants, animals and children," says Amy Frost of the Rebecca Hossack Gallery.

"They explore the joy of spring and summer. Her pieces are soft and colourful and contain lots of narratives. There is so much detail in her pictures. They're very joyful."

Howarth draws on her previous work in theatre production to influence her art, with the effect being that some of her works resemble a theatre set.

Howarth says: "Imagery is everything for me. It can make my heart pound. It is what inspires me when I'm in galleries, reading poetry or attending concerts."

Artist: Anthony Scullion
Age: 40
Lives: Glasgow
Trained: Glasgow School of Art
Gallery: Flying Colours Gallery, London
Stand number: 43
Price Range: £500-£11,000
Glasgow-based Scullion is known for his fine draughtsmanship and emotionally charged works. He has shown with the London-based Flying Colours Gallery since the late 1990s, Jane Houldsworth, its director, is singularly effusive about his work.

"It is deeply intuitive," she says. "Concentrating on the body of usually one individual per painting, Scullion invests these with forms and colours that hark back to the tradition of the Dutch masters.

"The paintings are emotionally powerful. Yet at the same time they are unique and gentle and they provoke strong reactions."

Scullion's paintings combine the solidity of human presence with atmospheric spaces. "They resonate the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, the spirituality of Giacometti and the distortion of Bacon," adds Houldsworth.

"I have sold Tony's work all over the world. They are very collectible pieces."

Artist: Stephen Bird
Age: 43
Lives: Dundee
Trained: Studied fine art at Duncan Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee
Gallery: Cyril Gerber Fine Art, Glasgow
Stand number: 33
Price Range: £250-£2000
Scottish-based artist Stephen Bird's work is drawn from many cultures. An Australian citizen, he was brought up in the potteries district of England, near Stoke-on-Trent. His collaged ceramic platters and figures combine ready-made and modelled elements to create complex compositions rich in imagery and reference to domestic, social and political life.

"I make artifacts which toy with convention," he says. "By presenting superstitious doctrines revealed in all their absurdity, I try to show that which brings us together rather than what separates us.

"I did painting at college but I got into ceramics about 10 years ago and taught myself. It's often hard to tell with my work whether it's a painting or a sculpture. Working with clay is ideal."

The densely patterned surfaces of familiar human images, drawn from recent trips to India and Australia, he says, are suggestive of the "global, transcultural nature of myths".

He specialises in using mass-produced religious imagery in his ceramics. Bird's use of words, collage and objects seems to fit with the idea of artist as "obsessive collector of data" whose work both distils these fragments into unified objects and works of art.

Artist: Ray Richardson
Age: 42
Lives: South London
Trained: Goldsmiths, University of London
Gallery: Advanced Graphics
Stand number: 31
Price Range: £350-£7500
Richardson's distinctive work has won him a loyal following. His textured, multi-woodblocked and print creations echo the earlier works of Jasper Johns. Bob Saich, a director of Advanced Graphics, says it is Richardson's "tongue in cheek" style which has attracted a younger following."Collectors of his work will often start by purchasing a print before a painting. Only once they feel confident with the work, will they will buy paintings, too. With Ray's work, nothing is quite what it seems. Much of it is built around his love of cinema, and much of it is figurative.

  • www.glasgowartfair.com


    Ones to watch
    As always, the Glasgow Art Fair is an overwhelming experience, with works piled on every inch of wall space. In among the unimaginative portraiture and landscape painting, it is the quiet and unassuming pieces that shine out, from the delightful pencil sketch by SJ Peploe at Cyril Gerber Fine Art to Susie Needham's photograms of christening gowns at Bertram.

Pieces that fall somewhere between fine art and craft are of a high standard - at Rebecca Hossack Gallery, Ross Bonfanti's concrete teddy bears are charmingly sinister.

At The Demarco European Art Foundation, you could be forgiven for missing a corner devoted to Joseph Beuy's, including a text piece, Food For Thought.

The highlight for those of a more contemporary bent is Artist Statement, a set of prints by seven Scottish artists. These works, by the likes of Christine Borland and Simon Starling, are £500, and represent a rare opportunity to own pieces by artists who tend to work on a gallery scale.