Pre- selected - will this be the year I get in?

This is the third time I have been pre-selected by the NEAC. I was drawing scholar in 2017-2018 and have never made it into the show, apart from when I had a wall as a scholar and sold three pieces!

This is what I wrote about The photographer ands his Subject, egg tempera on panel, 23 x 30, February 2023, when I submitted it:

When I must do errands and am not painting, I am always looking for ideas. That means an inevitable browse in a charity shop. I spotted the vase that is the centrepiece in this painting at an Oxfam. It was over my budget of under £5 but my mum was visiting and insisted she would buy it for me (because it was too beautiful to pass up) and said I could do a painting for her 89th birthday as a thank you. As it was intended for her, the subject matter includes my dad from his days at the Boston Stock Exchange in the 60s and a photo he took of me for a wedding announcement in the late 80s. The focus of this observed still life is the colour, shapes & marks, but I find looking at and thinking about something personal elicits a different kind of painting, perhaps painting infused with a little extra love.