When asked to be a selector for the Discerning Eye, I was surprised. My taste is not traditional, and the Discerning Eye has often been perceived to be so. I am a lover of ambitious installations, photographs, huge abstract canvases, public sculpture, none of which fit the parameters of this show. But selecting smaller works has been a challenge and surprisingly rewarding.

The calm simplicity of Jane Brennan's domestic subjects - beads, birds, flowers compel you to look again at things in your home and garden. Max Doig revels in paint to depict the fabric of life, while Simon Morley uses it conceptually to paint text fragments. Dexter Dalwood's collages are intricate constructions of his own reality of places he has never seen. Jessica Lack works to reclaim spaces she feels she has lost while Emma Smith's analyses the traces of existence we leave behind - in the bath, on buildings, in nightclubs.

Part of my selection came from open submission, and I was impressed by the number of high-quality works seen - art is such a personal thing that artists must be of a strong disposition to submit their work to the scrutiny of six selectors. So it's a heady mix of materials, methods and motives: I hope it reflects the eclecticism and dynamism of contemporary art today.

 

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