The first painting I ever bought was a portrait of my sister which I had commissioned when she was twelve and I was seventeen. In case that sounds a bit grand, or precocious, I should explain that the picture was painted by my then art teacher at Salford Grammar School and it cost five pounds. I paid him for the work by very irregular installments.

That portrait now hangs in my sister's house in Atlanta. It has given her and her family many years of pleasure, evoked a life time of memories and prompted countless reminiscences - all for a fiver. That's the thing about paintings, and for that matter drawings, etchings, sculpture and most creative art work. The pleasure given by the work is endless, it is a pleasure that grows with sharing, and it is a pleasure that cannot be measured in monetary terms.

To be a selector for Discerning Eye was for me both a pleasure and a privilege. Once started on the selection - a process which took two days and during which we looked at around two thousand submissions; a growing awareness of responsibility and humility quickly developed. The other selectors and I were faced with a difficult - if not impossible task.

The six selectors do not work as a panel. So the work on show has not been chosen by committee. On the contrary, since its inauguration the defining characteristic of the Discerning Eye exhibition is the fact that it represents the personal, even the idiosyncratic taste of the individual selectors. The most exciting and perhaps the most daunting aspect of my own experience as a Discerning Eye selector; is the knowledge that I cannot pass on the responsibility for the work exhibited in my section of the catalogue. It does feel almost as if I have put myself on show, along side the artists.

I hope that those who come to see the exhibition will derive as much pleasure from the work on view, as I have in being part of the selection process.

 

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