It is always inspiring to see Bermuda depicted through fresh eyes. Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art is exhibiting a show by joint artists in residence; oil painters, Susan Parish Adam and Joshua Adam from Maine. It is intriguing to have the artist in residence programme shared by a husband and wife.

St George’s is their muse for the majority of their paintings. Indeed, it is where the Masterworks artists stay during their visit, and what a perfect introduction it is for the visiting artist to the Island. It has inspired generations of local and foreign artists for its rich colours, textures and enigmatic light.

Joshua Adam is a keen observer of light. His inspiration for St George’s Afternoon is drawn from the long evening shadows that play colourfully upon rooftops and chimneys as Bermuda reaches a more subdued winter light. The subtle early evening shadows pervade the painting with a restful ease — very much a painting of time and place. The blue-violet shadow of the foreground roof combines with the warm orange light of the background landscape making the roof pop from the canvas. It is a beautifully executed painting. So too is the graceful, Dusk, St George’s, which is a cultured scene of tranquil waters towards Ordinance Island, exalted by a perfectly modulated sunset.

The evocative early evening light typical of St George’s is explored further in Slippery Hill. Here, the setting sun burns a blaze of gold upon a whitewashed wall amid the heavy shadowed lane that leads towards the harbour. The well observed reflected light from the unseen picture plane illuminates the shadow of the house’s balcony. It is remarkable how this view is so unchanged from Ogden Pleissner’s painting St George’s Harbour (and in the Masterworks permanent collection) painted some 60 years earlier from a similar position.

Seascapes feature too within the diverse range of Joshua Adam’s pictures. Two larger scale paintings engage and disappoint in equal measure. Tucker’s Point is a beach scene so typical of high summer in Bermuda. The artist seeks a dialogue between light and shade. An overly dull toned sea and underutilised figures diminish the power of this nuanced piece. The sunlit figures of the middle ground could be utilised as a link between the two halves of the painting had they been posed upright poking through the to shaded bay beyond.

Approach of Gonzalo is an extremely effective painting. You can sense the ominous air and a sea growing in anger. It is a considered representation of the recent hurricane with organic forms of Bermuda rocks painted with virtuosity. Joshua Adam is unquestionably an artist of high sensibility as he demonstrates further by the perfectly balanced colour harmony of Canon, St George’s.

There are instances where visible horizons are not quite straight in paintings, including East Side Surf and this small but critical anomaly can be enough to distract the eye and confuse the viewer’s reading of the painting. A little studio assessment time would correct the problem.

Susan Parish Adam is much more concerned with pattern in her paintings. Her contemporary style at times verges on the abstract. Form almost shifts and melts before your eyes. Her eye-catching, Road to Fort St Catherine, at the end of the gallery is a strikingly colourful interpretation of an iconic view. Above St George’s, is a balanced painting of quintessential Bermudian roof geometry and forms a series of square paintings using a limited colour palette. In these pictures she explores the relationship of shapes where even inanimate objects seem to possess a story telling potential. In particular the numerous triangulations of shape and design she chooses for Chapel Lane creates a balance and harmony of inter related elements.

Her paintings also combine storytelling within her figurative pieces like Coral Beach Club and Schoolgirl. Her two portrait paintings, Sisters captures the girls separately on a beach and are exhibited side by side. They are cropped curiously, mid-torso, without depicting their faces. She expresses the volume in the airily painted pink dresses of her subjects well. One sister is shown as she jumps from the sand but only the lower half of her body is evident from the top of the picture. A fleeting movement captured on canvas can tend to appear — however well painted — as though the subject is dangling in a frozen state of suspension.

The artists combine well together and have produced a meaningful exhibition of deserved success. Their pursuit of artistic truth is both an exciting and fulfilling experience: you really get a strong sense that they have pushed themselves and are never complacent. The hanging of their paintings are neatly integrated within the gallery too. Joshua Adam and Susan Parish Adam have added immense value to our perception of the Island and have clearly valued their time painting the Island. They exemplify what the Masterworks Artist in Residency is all about and have produced inspirational pictures.

Susan Parish Adam and Joshua Adam, Artist in Residence Exhibition at Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art runs until tomorrow.