EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.- The Society of Scottish Artists opens its annual exhibition to the public for the first time. The exhibition is being held in the Lower Galleries of the Royal Scottish Academy on The Mound, the exhibition will be open to the public from Saturday, January 22, to Thursday, February 17. It will feature the diverse work of 100 artists, selected from some 470 submissions to the Society earlier this month. The exhibition will be supported by several special events.

"In a world full of words and text and merchandising, it is hard for new visual arts to survive without them. However, I would like the audience to enter SSA 2005 not wearing a ready cliché, but with an open mind. The art world is a strange one and full of contradictions. The SSA is no exception: a need for commercial viability versus real development of a meaningful language for contemporary art: a truly wide representation of artists versus rigorous peer group selection," stated Kate Downie, President.