The small picture show has become a Christmas tradition on the island. Gallery artists exhibit up to six works each, in a festive flourish of paintings ranging in styles from the figurative and abstract to the illustrative and decorative.

There are several little gems to be discovered among more than 80 pieces.

It is a distinct advantage for an artist’s work in a small picture show to be read as a whole rather than just the individual piece.

The integrity of painting the same or similar size and format — as well as framing — help small pictures have a big effect.

Heidi Cowen is particularly mindful of these considerations. Favouring a square format in six oil paintings, she uses motifs of everyday life, like a lineman atop a utility pole or the strong contrasts of Father Mackenzie.

The erect figure at the focal point is heavily silhouetted against the bright yellow glow of a walled lane and balanced by the upright of the chimney for maximum impact.

Theresa Airey’s work of photographic prints on metal, Scent of Beauty: Red Anthurium and Bay Leaf, have as much polish as their highly reflective surfaces.

Molly Godet exhibits three watercolours including the luminously coloured Blue on Blue, Sinky Bay. Unusually for a watercolour, it is painted on a textured canvas paper and produces a fine effect. The pictures have the distinctive design element typical of her work. She describes the landscape figuratively, but her work has an awareness of the abstract. Rain at Sea, Elbow Beach has a succession of diagonal bands where grey sky and ocean merge achieving a restful harmony of both the design and painting elements.

She expresses the complex with simplicity.

Marlene Jantzen uses extreme contrast of light and dark well in Sinky Bay Rocks.

Sheilagh Head follows her recent solo show at the gallery with a strong showing of six oil paintings.

Christopher Marson is not at his best, but then the expectation accompanying his work is high. Planting Time has fine intent but would be helped by variation in the light tones of the background buildings.

Lee Petty has some pleasing sunlit paintings evocative of summer including Flatts Village, and Charles Zuill’s three pieces include the fascinating Buttery. The show receives some abstract flair in good work by Trevor Todd’s Cosmic Scapes and Kok Wan Lee’s Astwood Park series of paintings that are alive with colour and texture. Conversely, Christopher Grimes’s six oil paintings of bygone Bermuda utilise a limited palette.

Lively broken brush marks combine with lucid colour in Michele Smith’s oil In the Sound, of darting fitted dinghies. Rhona Emerson’s oil Ely’s Harbour has vitality.

The small painting show includes some miniatures. Nancy Smythe’s oils — some just a couple of inches square — include a delightful Vermeer copy proving that beautiful things really do come in small packages.

The bustling city corner gallery offers a restful retreat and an opportunity to buy an affordable original.

•The show at 117 Front Street runs until December 31