I am always somewhat uncomfortable with the people at Masterworks. As an organisation they have boundless enthusiasm, drive and determination.

Artistic judgment, however, seems very low on their totem pole. Judith Davidson has been given her first solo show at the Masterworks Rose Garden Gallery after only four years of painting experience.

The demands of such a show seem to have pushed her somewhat beyond the bounds of her limited experience.

This is a demonstration of the poor judgment of the Gallery, not of the artist.

There are 44 works in the show, most of which might better have been left at home. Mrs. Davidson is, basically, a plein air painter and a relative novice at her medium.

She now paints in oils after a start in the relatively easier acrylic medium. The result is that we are looking at what, for the most part, can only be described as tentative works.

Mrs. Davidson is obviously still feeling her way both with her medium and with her style, something every artist must do as he or she feels the way into their chosen medium and into a comfortable style.

Fortunately there is light at the end of the tunnel or perhaps several lights.

The best works are themselves not entirely consistent. One may look forward with some enthusiasm to the development of one or more of these styles.

As a painter Mrs. Davidson is primarily interested in textures and this show is primarily devoted to her experiments with various approaches to the development of textured works. These experiments include mixed media works, some of which include sand. This is not acknowledged in the catalogue and may occur less noticeably elsewhere.

The treatments vary from the almost primitive to the quite realistic and the results are equally varied, wandering from fuzzy vegetation to plastic looking rocks rendered with bold strokes of the palette knife.

What shines out, if all too infrequently, is Mrs. Davidson?s splendid sense of design.

One of the best works is (here I had to stop to hunt it down in the tiresome catalogue) ?Bay Grapes?. At first sight it is merely one of the better plein air works, but it holds the attention because of the carefully composed pattern and flow of the almost silhouetted round shapes of the leaves. This lifts the work quite out of the ordinary.

This talent is perhaps ascribable to Mrs. Davidson?s years of experience as a flower designer.

She should draw from this talent more frequently. It could easily become the solid foundation for her painting style.

?Shadows?, too, is startlingly different from the more tentative and experimental works. It is of a gardening hat and trowel thrown down in the leafy shadows, no doubt by a hot and tired gardener.

It is a small work of considerable strength and character, informed as much by its design and pattern as anything else. This strong sense of design is the artist?s strength and, like a good bridge player, she should lead from strength.

In the same design and pattern vein is the very striking ?Palms at Sunset?.

This is her largest work and is deceptively simple. There are seven almost absurdly elongated palms, so slender that a gentle breeze would decapitate the lot.

The sense of design in this simple silhouette work is, however, masterly in its starkly simple composition; indeed it is almost mesmerising.

My advice to Mrs. Davidson would be to ease off on the conventional pretty views and give free rein to her highly developed design talent.

There is an impressive catalogue with every painting identified by a small colour digital photograph.

The computer should be an absolute boon to art galleries. In a matter of not many minutes after the show is hung the gallery should be able to produce a presentable catalogue in the sequence in which the show is hung and number and identify each work both on the wall and in the catalogue.

Unfortunately Masterworks has dropped the ball. The illustrated and numbered catalogue, at first sight so professionally slick, turns out to be little more than a tiresome annoyance because the paintings on the wall are neither numbered nor identified and are not hung in the catalogue sequence.

This is nothing if not frustrating.

Mrs. Davidson deserved better.