Summer Members' Show has had one obvious result: a much smaller show, which certainly allows the viewer to absorb the chosen few with unaccustomed ease.

It would not be unreasonable to assume that the decision to axe so many pieces was taken so that only the very best of the Society's art would be featured.

But what we have is the usual mish-mash of wildly differing standards, which suggests that the vexed problem of establishing a consistent jurying policy that makes any more sense to the viewer than it does to the entrants, is as far away as ever.

While this season's show is perhaps short on fresh talent, there is outstanding work from established artists, several of them showing signs of intriguing new directions.

Vaughan Evans takes pride of place at the entrance of the exhibition with three spectacular pastel studies of banyan trees. He captures perfectly the paradoxically sensuous movement that flows through these solidly twisted roots. The boldly flowing lines, richly textured and again, unexpectedly dramatised by warm sunlight, mark new heights of achievement for even this gifted artist. Watch out, Georgia.

Otto Trott experiments in different styles and subject matter with a provocative oil study of Easter Lilies. Echoes of cubism, with its powerfully constructed pattern form on a canvas drenched in brilliant colour signals a new career turn.

Sheilagh Head, on the other hand, fresh from her exclusive concentration on the abstract in the Dockyard show, displays only her more familiar landscapes.

But here, too, there is surely a new sumptuousness in a palette that encapsulates Bermuda's brilliance of light in her miniature paintings, but also luxuriates in a softer luminescence as land merges with sea and sky in larger works.

One of the enduring pleasures of these exhibitions is to catch up, if this is possible, with the fertile imagination and precocious technique of Graham Foster. Still at art school, it is as yet impossible to detect his ultimate destination as an artist. Suffice to say that there are four works on show that are startling in their versatility of media and technical accomplishment.

One of Elmer Midgett's strengths is his ability to isolate and embrace the beauty of everyday objects and his two gardening studies confirm that he now has few rivals in his relentless explorations of intense light and shade. Amy Evans is also in top form with three watercolours that positively glow with light. Her Sunday Morning, Flatts, in particular, is bathed in rosy dawn colours that bring a softer vibrancy to her work. Gesture III, a charcoal figure study by Jennifer Stobo reveals a fine sense of movement through economy of line, as does Jason Semos' powerful study of a male nude and Nicky Gurret's cement sculpture of two entwined figures.

Although the overall effect of this exhibition is rather low-key, seemingly concentrating on refinement rather than on innovation, there is plenty here to enjoy.

PATRICIA CALNAN BULL, WOMAN AND BIRD is the intriguing title of art student Graham Foster's picture. Gallery guide Mrs. Carol Roy is seen with Mrs. Joan Powers and Mr.

Peter Lundebjerg, visiting from Birmingham, Alabama.