Professional artist Elizabeth Mulderig is known for her charming style, which combines superior painting skills with whimsy and clever humour, and her delightful miniatures are particularly effective in portraying these qualities.

In fact, what started out 15 years ago as a special auction of such paintings at the now defunct Plantation restaurant has since grown into something of a collector’s feast, for which the artist has built up an avid following.

“People have started to collect my miniatures and treat them like little gems,” Miss Mulderig says. “In fact, I have one friend who bought six of them and then flew to New York to get them framed with linen mattes in a very chic store. She then had a local store engrave their titles on brass plaques, and the paintings are now arranged on her living room wall in the shape of a cross (which is every Catholic art school girl’s dream!). She has treated them like collector’s items, and they have become the veritable Fabergé eggs of Bermuda.”

For this aficionado and many others like her, there is good news: Miss Mulderig is holding an exhibition of her latest oil glazes on board tomorrow evening in the new Wine Cellar of Gosling’s Dundonald Street headquarters from 5.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

“The cellar looks like a huge banquet hall, and the contrast between its size and the tiny paintings will not be lost on my audience,” she says.

Among the collection will be the martini glass — a recurring theme that is especially popular with her fans.

The event is a one-off opportunity to view and purchase the miniatures, whose new size is three inches by three inches. Inspiration for reducing her paintings to this new size came from a French miniaturist.

“I think they might be the smallest paintings on the Island, and they are almost based on riddles,” the artist says.

As always, Miss Mulderig will be donating ten percent of all sales to Meals on Wheels, this year’s charity of choice.

“I have always done my miniatures in aid of one charity or another, and each year I choose a new one to help,” she says. “Ann Powell, who is very active in Meals on Wheels, told me a little of what that charity does in bringing food to the shut-ins. I thought it was a very worthwhile cause because for people like the elderly the worst thing that can happen is for them to be under-nourished.”

The artist also pays tribute to Framecrafters and Hugh Watlington for their work in connection with tomorrow’s show.

“Framecrafters at Heron Bay have been framing my miniatures for about five years — I think they are terrific — and Hugh has made the little wooden stands for each of them.”

Miss Mulderig’s first miniatures exhibition was at the ACE gallery, where they were well received, and last year’s private showing at the Coral Beach Club was so successful that the Club produced a calendar of 12 of them. On average, the artist holds a miniatures show and sale of her work about once every 12-18 months, so those who miss out tomorrow night will have to wait patiently for the next opportunity.

Mulderig’s miniatures