After an absence of 30 years, world-renowned British artist Malcolm Morley is returning to Bermuda next week to deliver a lecture entitled 'On Painting'.

Mr. Morley, winner in 1984 of the first Turner Prize awarded by London's Tate Gallery, will speak at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) on Wednesday next, March 7, at 6.30 p.m. This is the second in the 'Masterworks Talks Art' series under the patronage of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Mr. Morley first visited Bermuda in 1977 and painted works depicting the Island.

He later recalled: "Once on a visit to Bermuda, I visited the renowned Naval Museum. There I admired a plaque of 'Ajax', a World War II British destroyer of the Ajax class. The image was of a classic Greek helmet.

"My painting, 'Crusade', depicts a cog from the time of King Henry V, with various banners and shields on the side of the vessel. One of them is the red and white shield of St. George, which obviously related to the history of Bermuda.

"This cog is full of triangular sails, a geometry that one sees throughout the picture and, in a sense, is suggestive of the ebb and flow of the so-called Bermuda Triangle. It is the very special light that I experienced in Bermuda that permeates this painting. In one sense, all this illusion adds up to a myth that is just as unlikely as that of the Bermuda Triangle."

Mr. Morley's work combines autobiographical, mythical and emotional content, with a painting style influenced not only by C[LCacute-e]zanne but also a range of twentieth century art movements, including Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

The artist has also stated that he has "this tremendous belief in the relationship between what we call the unconscious and conscious life. I think we're really more like icebergs. There's this huge underbelly. The idea is to integrate the two so they become one".

Born in north London, Mr. Morley only discovered art while serving a three-year sentence in Wormwood Scrubs prison. Upon his release he studied art, first at the Camberwell School of Arts and then at the Royal College of Art, where his fellow students included Peter Blake and Frank Auerbach.

In 1958, a year after leaving the Royal College, the artist moved to New York City where he met Barnett Newman and became influenced by him. He painted a number of works at this time, made up of only horizontal black and white bands. He also met Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and, influenced in part by them, changed to what he prefers to call a "super realist" style.

The artist often used a grid to transfer photographic images, often of ships, from a variety of sources including travel brochures, calendars and old paintings, to canvas as accurately as possible, and thus became one of the most noted photo realists.

Tickets for the lecture ($15 for Masterworks members, $20 for non-members) can be purchased from Masterworks' office in the Botanical Gardens, or call 236-2950.