ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2024

A message from our Sponsors, ING

Malgorzata Kolakowska, ING CEO UK & Middle East

ING has forged a unique partnership with The Discerning Eye charity, championing its renowned exhibition for more than a quarter of a century.

This enduring relationship reflects ING’s belief in the powerful link between finance, artistic expression, and wellbeing, as we continue to support creativity and its positive impact on people’s lives.

This year saw new beginnings with the official launch of ING’s new partnership with mental health charity the Charlie Waller Trust.

This union only compliments our work with Discerning Eye. Art’s role in improving wellbeing is established.

Research shows that creating art can significantly reduce stress, lower anxiety, and improve mood. Whether it’s painting, drawing, or any form of artistic expression. Even appreciating art-by visiting galleries or admiring street art-can be beneficial for both mental and physical health.

This understanding of art’s impact on wellbeing adds even greater meaning to our partnership with Discerning Eye.

Over the past 26 years, more than £1.25 million worth of art has been sold, more than 15,000 works have been exhibited, and more than 4000 artists have shared their talents with the world.

Through this partnership, ING helps emerging artists reach new audiences and provides a platform for creative expression, which, in turn, fosters mental resilience and emotional wellbeing.

As a global bank, ING is driven by a mission to empower people to stay ahead in life and business. This extends to our support of the arts, where we are committed not just to financial empowerment but to emotional wellbeing.

Our selectors-esteemed artists, critics, and collectors-have played an essential role in bringing diverse British art to the forefront.

As we celebrate another year of this partnership, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the selectors, artists, The Discerning Eye, and the Parker Harris Partnership for their dedication and hard work. Together, we continue to highlight the power of art-not just in creativity and culture, but in its ability to enhance our lives.

Here’s to another fantastic year of celebrating the arts, mental health, and the talents of the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2024.

A message from The Discerning Eye

Sarah Hall, Chair, Discerning Eye

Welcome to the 2024 ING Discerning Eye Exhibition. We are delighted to be once again physically in the Mall Galleries and also available to see and buy online.

As always, a huge thank you to the artists who submitted work through our open submission process – we simply wouldn’t be here without you. This year we again had a large entry of pieces across a wide variety of media. The geographic trend that we have seen since moving to a virtual submission, thanks to Covid, in 2020 has very much continued. This means we continue to see work from an expanding list of artists based across all parts of the UK.

We are very grateful to the selectors, who this year are: Carol Leonard, Gabrielle Blackman, Nina Murdoch, Adebanji Alade, Paul Carey Kent and Will Gompertz. They all showed great enthusiasm, good humour, dedication and commitment in addressing the task of judging and selecting from so many pieces of art. The quality of submissions was very high and the choices extremely hard as a result.

As you will see when you visit this exhibition, each selector’s choice is curated as a separate exhibition within the whole. Within each selection works from, as yet, less well known artists, hang alongside pieces by those who are more established or internationally recognised. In addition, within the exhibition you will see a seventh section, a further small exhibition of the shortlisted pieces for the DE Drawing Bursary, the recipient of which will be decided during the course of the exhibition.

All works are for sale.

We at Discerning Eye owe a huge thank you our sponsors, ING. This year marks the 26th year of that support. Without their generous support we could not stage this annual exhibition. In particular Małgorzata Kołakowska, their CEO and Katie Hiles, Alex Griffith and their teams at ING in London who have led on their engagement with this year’s exhibition.

Finally I should like to thank Parker Harris, our exhibition organisers, whose hard work, skill and enthusiasm is matchless, the team at the Mall Galleries, the board of and the many and various supporters of The Discerning Eye.