Diana Armfield RA
What a privilege it is to be asked to choose the artists who will provide between them sixty works, to be hung with another twenty selected from a very big submission. The 'invited' artists' work could show what I really admire in the work of fellow painters.

I'm delighted to have been asked, but what will the wall look like? I selected the artists not their work! It certainly won't turn out as I first visualized.

I think of works themselves, my own rather particularly, as I think of grown up children; they seldom turn out as originally conceived, but instead, at some stage, take on their own development. That is part of the mystery of creating anything. However, I do look forward with enthusiastic confidence to seeing all the works my selected artists have chosen to send and of course the work of the artists of my co-selectors.

My list was made mostly from figurative artists, who have seemed to me, over the years, and however different their styles, to admire even love or feel sympathy for their subject matter, relish their chosen medium, the craft underpinning their artistry, and have also managed to use their minds! Just as important they all draw. I have also asked several painters who lean towards abstraction because they too seem to me to exhibit an approach that is generous in conception and celebratory. I have included artists of considerable reputation and those whose talents have yet to be fully recognized, and I have representation from most parts of the country.

I fully support the limitation. A few artists do need huge areas to best express their intentions, and most of us learn from attempting larger scale endeavours at intervals but the results are not necessarily right for exhibition. Most artists gain periodically from an imposed limitation; it can concentrate the mind and a small scale often seems to intensify the vision.

The twenty works added from the open submission might make clearer the intended 'note' from each selector, because each of us will be choosing the actual works. But there again, co-selectors will be calling out to claim particular works and they may be too quick off the mark for me! I may find that I am just hoping to add works of outstanding merit regardless of the approach. Their work will be contributing to an exhibition which we hope the public will both thoroughly enjoy, and among that public we hope there will be lots with deep enough pockets to allow them to carry off work to appreciate at home.