The members' juried open show at the Arts Centre at Dockyard is as strong a show as that group has mounted in recent years. It is a show full of vitality, variety, interest and talent and is well worth the long drive to get there.

Following the catalogue order the show starts with abstracts by the amazingly prolific Kok Wan Lee. His "Bermuda Palm" series of three charcoal works might have been inspired by the close-up photographic abstractions in Robin Judah's recent book. They swirl gracefully with defined but unfocussed elegance. After relishing these his two works entitled "Life" come as something of a disappointment. They might have been inspired by the life on the surface of a stagnant pond or a bowl of pea soup with ham.

Rhona Emmerson maintains her own distinct style, something not always easily done in a field of plein air painters as talented as those we have in Bermuda. Her work is extremely painterly, the paint liberally applied with sure strokes and clear colour. In "Devonshire Bay" she has some trouble with the movement of choppy water, but her "South Shore View" is exceptional for the deft impressions achieved with an economy of brushwork. Its light and atmosphere rival anything in this fine show.

Frances Furbert's pastel "Match-Me-If-You-Can" is rendered in such close up detail that it first comes across as an abstract. Its cleverly balanced composition and colour scheme makes what might have been dull remarkably interesting.

Sheep are more usually the subject of off-colour Kiwi jokes than of painting. They are remarkably difficult to paint with any success because almost all traces of structural anatomy are hidden under excesses of wool.

The result can be akin to a powder puff on toothpicks. Diana Stanton manages to overcome this problem in her four "Sheep Studies", the first of which astonishingly achieves both dignity and character. They are small works of surprising interest given the unpromising subject matter.

Vernon Clarke offers four portrait studies. The most compelling is of an unlikely subject, the unfortunate Sunny whose sad decline into vagrancy has been witnessed by many over some 25 years. "Sunshine for Sunny" penetrates the character of the man and sees some of the innate charm that used to be quite evident, but seems to most of us to survive no longer. As a character study this is a minor triumph. "A Break in the Case" is a study of Saul Froomkin relaxing with his inevitable cigar outside the Supreme Court in the basics of his QC uniform, but without wig and gown. Again it has considerable perception of character. His two female portraits are a little diminished by some difficulties with anatomy and by not being such well-known public characters.

Christopher Marson is represented only with oils and they are interesting as only works in a developing style can be to a reviewer. I, of course, look for the spare treatment I enjoy so much in his watercolours, but oil and water notoriously don't mix. Without using oils as one would watercolour the same effects cannot be achieved in the same way. "Mangrove Bay Winter" is reminiscent of the watercolour style, but is nevertheless much more complex in the execution. It is a fine step forward. "Salt Kettle, Morning" is a firm work with considerable character while "Morning Shadows, Somerset" is a good, simply rendered treatment, albeit on the gloomy side. "Old Somerset" was , I thought, a little Sheilagh Headish.

When Angela Gentleman gets her colours balanced her abstracts can be splendid. Here her colours are rich and clear, her contrasts subtle and effective. Abstracts as a rule do not much appeal to me, but Ms Gentleman's were easily as good as anything in the show.

Sheilagh Head has four works in the show. "St. George's Alley" is one of her best smaller works; it has a superb play of light and shade on simple planes that interact to make an interesting composition with no fuss about it. "A Last Look, East Broadway" is an almost shameless pandering to nostalgia and not one of her better works. The strong colour of the water glinting past Queen of the East unbalances the rest of the painting. In "Southampton Evening" there seems to be some unsettling confusion of light sources, but with "Cedar and Old Walls" I found myself uncomfortably staring at the canvas for some time before I understood what disoriented me. The composition lines lead the eye to a point more or less in the centre of the composition where there is nothing to look at. I begin to wonder whether the usually inimitable Mrs. Head isn't pot boiling.

Chesley Trott's smooth, fluid, abstract cedar sculptures don't talk to me as they perhaps should. There is one in this show. There is also, however, a remarkable shift from his usual style in a work appropriately titled "Marine Life". This is a substantial column of cedar carved with fluid representations of fish, a sculpture possibly inspired by the wonderful XL lobby's columnar aquarium. What I most enjoyed about it, after its strength and vitality, were the textures behind the fish on their supporting column.

They were rich and varied and invited cautious touching.

A cedar sculpture by Arnett Dill, "Nasty", was based on what must have been a highly unprepossessing piece of wood, old and with knots become knot holes. An eye that sees the beauty in such a piece of wood is remarkable and Mr. Dill has made the most of it, nasty though he may have thought it. It is one of the most intriguing pieces of abstract sculpture I have seen in some time.

In closing I owe an apology to Rick Marson, whom I wrongly, but excusably, I think, took to be male. She is, in fact Mrs. Rick Marson and I regret having got it wrong, but I do remember asking in the gallery if Rick might be Chris's son. The gallery was no help. As far as I can recall I have never met Mrs. Marson and so did my inadequate best, earning a suitable and amusing rebuke in this show.