After the self-conscious ?contemporary? effect essayed at the National Gallery?s Biennial it was a pleasure to go up to the Dockyard to see the Arts Centre?s current members? show. For a start, the technical quality of the work was generally better and while the show was at least as varied in content and style as the Biennial?s it held together better.

The show meets you with Vaughan Evans? superbly executed woodcuts, three of the self portrait group to be seen at the Biennial, one titled ?Debate? of two heads in the same rather harsh, disquieting vein and one, ?Sunset Cloud? in a much simpler, more direct style.

The latter work has a sunny freshness in strong contrast to the almost claustrophobic immediacy of the portraits and is quite delightful. In another part of the gallery Mr. Evans showed a pastel, ?Orchid House?. An orchid house to me implies a lush, almost steamy richness. This work didn?t.

I passed by Amy Evans at the Biennial, thinking my disappointment might be the fault of the jury, not the artist. However, my disappointment was renewed at the Dockyard.

Mrs. Evans has refined what to me some years ago was a very promising style into a geometric, flat and somehow rather uninteresting result. ?Harriette?s Neighbour? was relieved by the texture of the unplastered stone.

Neatly hung in conjunction were the works of Peter Lapsley and Kok Wan Lee,both of whom work in charcoal. More impressions than abstractions, Mr. Lapsley?s two principal works were made sinister by sombre rows of faceless human forms.

These forms recur individually in ?The Fish Bowl?, a set of eight small works. Mr. Lee?s works were impressions of pottery swirling into abstract forms in the background, the ominous next to the sinister.

Segueing as smoothly as the artist?s names around the corner of the gallery were six black and white ?photograms? by Lee Finch. I am not sure what, exactly, a ?photogram? is and would be happy to learn about the technique ? the results are fascinating.

The effect is that of a photograph with light and shade reversed, but these photograms were clearly achieved by close contact of the subject with a light sensitive surface, allowing very little gradation from light to dark.

?Window? shows a hand apparently pressed against the uppermost of three glass panes in a window frame entirely black.

The arm quickly fades to black in the background. Three were of boys lying exuberantly splayed and pressed against the film surface, the result at once both festive and mildly unnerving.

More obvious was ?Tree?, the leaves of which are exposed in their close proximity to the film. Much the most lively, humorous and, I assume, the most difficult of execution was ?Tell me why you don?t like shopping?. It depicts a man falling on his face with a grocery cart flying out of his grasp, his glasses fallen by the wayside in the process.

Angela Gentleman presents a mixed media abstract executed with more technical skill and compositional balance than most of its competition in the Biennial.

Less satisfying were the unusual acrylic works of Andrea Carter. These are executed in a highly textured treatment and could be taken for esoteric set designs for horror movies.

Judith Davidson amuses by her perhaps deliberately misnamed ?Sentry Plant?, an attractive small goache of an agave, usually known as the Century Plant.

Her more serious work, ?Take Five?, is an acrylic with an oil wash of a gardening hat and trowel set down in the shade. The treatment of light and shade is both restful, the intent of the artist, and compelling. The oil wash serves to both enrich the acrylic and to soften it.

The photographs of Leonore Leitch are varied and as fascinating as the artist?s eye. Daybreak on ?Abacus IV? is an abstract based on a close-up photo of what I took to be layers of chipped and scraped old paint.

In cool contrast was ?Pears in Pewter?, a photograph of exactly that in a wonderful soft golden near monochrome. Contrasting once again was ?Geometry?, a blue wooden door photographed through another white masonry opening. In this photograph there is no ?escape?, the interest being in the angles and textures.

Chesley Trott, the absence of whose work I complained of in the Biennial, beautifully proves my point. His Bermuda cedar sculpture ?As One?, an abstraction of a kissing couple quite simply wipes the eye of the piece of cedar sculpture at the National Gallery. It lives, it moves, it excites. Cedar isn?t an easy medium in which to work. Chesley Trott is its master.

Jonah Jones is showing a set of seven small oils, all rather flat and chalky. They give the impression of having been ?dashed off? for the occasion. His adjacent studio was much more rewarding.

It included, among many other admirable works a large, untitled and already sold oil of a raft up in Mangrove Bay in vivid, warm, sunny, sunset light, a work much more in his best style and unfortunately quite likely never again to be available for public view.

You should rush up to the Dockyard immediately ? the Arts Centre show and Jonah Jones? studio are both worth the trip.