For a truly remarkable experience in art, hotfoot it to the Dockyard. There at the Bermuda Arts Centre may be seen the pastels of almost a score of the students of Sharon Wilson. What is so remarkable is the sheer quality of the work on display.

Not surprisingly, given Ms Wilson?s personal technique, visual texture is the unifying characteristic of the show. Almost no work is executed with that soft smooth finish that makes many a pastel seem insipid. Not a single one of the more than 60 works on display could possibly be called insipid. Neither could any of them be dismissed as gaudy.

Careful attention has obviously been given in Ms Wilson?s classes to the control of colour schemes. In this show the works vary from moderately colourful to monochromatic. All of the colour schemes, however, are thoughtful and appropriate to the subjects involved. Careful observation is another discipline Ms Wilson obviously ? and rightly encourages.

There are portraits, figure studies, landscapes, still life works, animals, seascapes, botanicals and abstracts. All are carefully observed and sensitively interpreted. There are even hands that are anatomically believable.

In the last show of Ms Wilson?s students? work a year ago there was a certain identifiable uniformity ascribable to Ms Wilson?s own chosen genre style. This year?s crop of students shows no such uniformity. This is clearly because Sharon Wilson has grown as a teacher just as impressively as her students have grown as artists.

Perhaps the only unifying feature of the show other than visual texture is the warm glow of humanity that can be sensed throughout. That certainly spills over from Ms Wilson?s own work. Perhaps the most interesting example of the use of visual texture is to be seen in Monica Jones? ?The Simple Life?. It consists of blue spheres on an ivory ground and the excitement lies primarily in the texturing of the colour. It had much of the visual impact of travertine stone and one itched to touch. By the same artist was a monochrome portrait, ?Joe?, as imbued with richness of character as any good portrait should be. A splendidly wispy study of potted plants gave her an opportunity to try some mild abstraction and her varied interest and talents were rounded out with ?Ken?s Boat? a venerable dinghy comfortably embraced in its calm water.

Slightly more in the vein of her teacher was Caron Pimental?s ?Market Day?, a couple of ancients at market, turned away looking at vegetables on the stall. The stiffness of age was sympathetically apparent, and the nearer man?s gnarled hand subtly displayed the need for the cane that it clutched. Not many have so great a sensitivity for the minor difficulties of advancing age.

The only other painting of a building on fire that comes readily to mind is Turner?s famous version of the burning of Westminster Palace. To paint such a subject has many of the same difficulties as trying to paint a sunset.

Anthy Hellmers overcomes the problem successfully in ?Like a House on Fire?. Caught at its full fury there is the sense that what is left of the house might be lifted up and carried away by the power of the flames. In the monochrome department Zoe Oliver?s ?Three Love?, three tennis balls in a row, stands out for the successful rendering of the texture of the tennis balls. The acuteness of the artist?s observation and the attention to form and texture are impressive. So are they in ?Ole Somerset Cottage? and ?Ole Bridge?. These are more conventional subjects, charmingly rendered and with such beautifully interpreted texture of age that one almost fails to notice the technical excellence of both works.

Elizabeth Foster?s ?Grapefruit and Urn?, a still life in shades of green as expertly textured as one might expect, made one wonder if a passion for greens might be hereditary. Mrs. Foster is the mother of the well-known Graham.

Elisa Stubbs? ?Morning Glory Study? was the nearest in the show to a conventional smooth pastel work and it failed to prepare one for the vibrant, textured, richly coloured ?Giant Violas? (flowers, not musical instruments) later in the show. If the show has a fault at all, it is that the artists? works are not hung together, making such comparisons difficult.

Frank Dublin, who may well be Ms Wilson?s student of longest standing, is also the one who might be said to have made least progress. Much of his work has a disconcerting flatness under the texture. It is as though he sees as far as the first surface, but then misses the little depths that could give his usual subjects character and impact. In this show, in addition to such work, Mr. Dublin has branched out into the abstract with ?Fishy Tales?, a pun on the fishtails informing the abstraction. The intricacies of little depths have no importance in such a work and his talent with colour and texture give this work power and liveliness. I hope to see more such in the future.

Janet Nearon, amusingly misspelled in the catalogue as ?Neuron?, has, amongst other works, a delightful portrait of ?Lucky?, an elegant retriever as obviously beloved as lovable. In many ways this heart-warming work summed up both the sensitivity and the talent of this remarkable show. It is a show from which I departed with reluctance, feeling a great deal better about things than I did when I arrived. Sharon Wilson and all her students must be proud indeed. The show closes on December 2, leaving just two weekends for a trip to the Dockyard.