The new show at the Bermuda Society of Arts Gallery at the City Hall, 'Out of Nature' is a comparatively small show for that lively society and almost half the gallery has hold-overs from their recent Invitational Show. 'Out of Nature', however, has some interesting work.

The show opens with five works by nature abstractionist Kok Wan Lee. These are titled 'Life', but might more properly be termed botanical life. They are, for want of a better phrase root and branch inspired. Phantasmagoric tangles of roots and branches reach out to ensnare the viewer. One felt as though one might well be the Jabberwok "whiffling through the tulgey wood".

At the end of the "tulgey" wood effect is to be found, happily enough, Carroll Johnson's lovely photograph of Bermudianas just in bud and photographed close up with fading background focus. Shortly thereafter comes Al Seymour's fine, dignified portrait, 'Namibian Woman'. This is a good example of his new relaxed style not, however, to be seen in his excessively pink oil 'A Summer Moment' later in the show.

The disparate photographs of Russell Butler are as intriguing as they are unusual. Quite what a 'Polaroid manipulation' is I have no idea but the results came in sequences of two, 'Yellow Bathroom' and 'Waiting for Godot' with the second version distorted. His 'Projected Self Portrait' consists of excerpts and cutouts mounted collage style, but at apparent random over a large white surface. Perhaps all the figures from very small child to not so small adult were of the artist, but clues were few. Next in his collection was 'Untitled', a shot of an androgynous youth talking on a cell-phone and standing with his back to a wooden cross mounted on a tree on which the question "do u fear God?" was painted. The youth's utter indifference to either question or answer was palpable. The last of his series was 'Luke and Tory', a young couple seated in a park. He is holding a white cut out silhouette of the head of Tyrannosaurus Rex. There seemed no thread tying any of these together, but on reaching the end one felt compelled to go back to the beginning and look again.

Almost in train was the single entry of Daniel Atwood, a photograph of a cat looking close up at a TV screen with one of those sickening ads showing an amorous couple stretched out on deck chairs on an improbably empty tropical beach.

Almost as intriguing and a quite lovely photograph was Michael Fahy's 'The Blue Jade Hairpins of Yangshao', a view from a lake past ruins to a scene of typical Chinese mountains. On the lakeshore are undulating bamboo walks on which are a good number of chaises longues. Oddly these all face the ruins and the mountains with their backs to the lake.

'Sabah's Pride at Sunset', a photograph of a mountaintop at sunset with clouds above and below by Fozeia Fahy is more conventional, but still lovely in its use of light and dark and in the subtlety of its colour.

Had Nahshon O'Neill Hollis been more than his nine to ten years of age I probably wouldn't be quite so enthusiastic about his work. Given his tender years, however, his talent and ability are extraordinary. He paints in oils, but with much of the style of watercolours. His opening offering, a portrait, though inevitably lacking in a good deal of basic anatomy, is quite clearly a likeness of Elizabeth Morse-Brown. More a sketch or even a cartoon than a portrait, young Mr. O'Neill Hollis will clearly mature into a talented portrait artist if that is the direction in which his talent leads him.

His other works are landscapes, clearly not of Bermuda, and all painted in his water-colourist style. He has a good grasp of perspective, an excellent sense of the cooling of colour with distance, and an sensitive feel for mist softened light and cloud form. I'm not sure he quite qualifies as an infant prodigy, but there is great promise of fine things to come. One can only hope that soccer or cricket doesn't intervene.

Joyce Beale's two batiks in this show are a little out of her usual soft style and are none the worse for that. 'Nightlife' is a scene of fish in strong tones of dark green while 'beware' has as its subject that most unattractive of pests, the Portuguese Man o' War, menacingly floating with its purple underside and vicious tentacles foremost. It's worth at least a shudder.

Underwater scenes are usually the rather hackneyed province of obsessed photographers. In this show they have attracted the attention of a watercolourist and an oil painter. The watercolour, 'Floating' by Lydia Franks is satisfyingly soft and believable in contrast to the vivid colours and often artificial light of the dedicated photographer. It has been almost 50 years since my sinuses finally prevented me from more scuba diving, but this painting struck a chord of memory that no photograph ever has. By contrast the two oils of Giles Campbell 'Through the Wide Waters I & II' were rather hard, harsh and dark in mood.

Six digital photographs by Tim Hulse, were enchantingly titled sequentially from the poem "Tiger, Tiger ? Burning bright ? In the forest of the night ? Burnt the fire of thine eyes Did he smile his work to see Did he who made the lamb make thee?" The subjects of his photography, spiders and other insects, frogs, evil looking seeds and a spiky tree trunk were much less than enchanting, but nevertheless held the attention with their horrible fascination. Good photography requires perseverance and patience. Mr. Hulse must have an ample supply of both.

As is almost always the case, the Society of Arts can pull both good and interesting work from their diversity of members. This is just such a show and in combination with the show in its companion Edinburgh Gallery will well reward a visit.