Art on your bed

The reaction of Chris Scicluna, Mater Dei Hospital's PRO, to Kenneth Zammit Tabona's lamentation about the choice of art works for the new hospital (Art At Mater Dei Hospital, May 22) brings even more bad news. Not only have the walls of Mater Dei been entrusted to Mcast students but they will cost the taxpayers a further Lm40,000! I would rather look at the impressionists' prints at St Luke's Hospital than at the students' "art pieces" considered therapeutic by the ad hoc "healing art committee".

I agree that students should be given every opportunity to practise and exhibit their works but the country's major public project is no nursery for students! If the best designers and suppliers have been chosen for the hospital, why has every process of selection been abandoned when it comes to such a vital aspect of its embellishment? Why should not art be entrusted to artists? Finding the right art for public places is no easy task at all as many of our roundabouts and pavements have shown us and the closer and hurried the process, the worse it will become.

Whilst a public competition was launched for one main artistic work for the hospital, all other art works were commissioned to students who, it is presumed, have been asked to be inspired and complete no less than 615 masterpieces before the opening!

I suggest that the Lm40,000, or what's left of them, be used to purchase works from different Maltese artists who have spent years maturing their styles and might possess that ethereal, uplifting quality that only art will stand out for.