The 'Sex' show at the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard would more accurately be called 'Erotica'. And most pieces wouldn't even be considered erotic except in Bermuda. It is my opinion that an artist's rendering of a nude body, of which there are quite a few in this show, does not automatically equal erotic or sex, it's just a body. This is a conclusion shared by Peter Lapsley, one of the featured artists in the show, who is exhibiting mostly similar large nudes, both male and female. They seem more like studies of line and form and experimental application of paint and other media. It is splashed, dribbled and brushed, sometimes in very broad strokes, and to me they do not seem very sexual.

Jon Legere, the other featured artist, has taken the theme and run with it into a large variety of works in various media. Pink, which he says is passion mixed with white, is the dominant colour. It predominates in his 'she loves me she loves me not', series of small and larger oils. They are more elementary, closer to the birds and the bees, abstract and more interesting viewed close up. His 'b side box' small mixed media installation, set up on a plinth, however crosses the line into sex. There's a small painting, a confusing two inch diameter rod with small eggs all over it covered in globs of pink paint and the box. It is wooden, with a red rope handle and full of art. There are pieces of printed paper and acetate, photographs and sexual doodles, some quite explicit. They seem to have been chosen for the sensual texture as well as content and rooting through the drawer gives a sense of sneaking a look at someone's sexual fantasies.

The sexuality in Mr. Legere's 'Media Midsection' is clear. In this small installation a video monitor is mounted on the bottom half of a female mannequin. It plays a video with raucous sound that moves from the suggestion, in lace, of female genitalia to a man's licking tongue to something indistinguishable and muselogenous.

From 'In Your Face' to more subtle erotica is Elizabeth Materska's 'Bachanalia'. It is a wild and fantastic yet subtle portrayal of nudes reposing and cavorting with sexual energy. The subtlety comes from the muted yellow, orange, red and blue colours painted over carved gypsum giving a three dimensional effect. She is also exhibiting a couple of electrically charged, unrestricted pastels of dancing nudes.

Joyce Beale has also drawn from ancient mythology in her batik 'Temptation', a yellow feather-like clad turbaned female, with one breast exposed, is touching her hand to a red horned devil with a sly look. In 'Lust' a woman on the warpath in a flowing red cloak with high hair and breasts askew, moves across the fabric.

Black and white archival prints by Sacha Blackburne are also incredibly erotic. In 'Nascent Embrace', a man has his arms around the pregnant belly of a woman who is embracing herself. This is accentuated by venetian blinds shadows. There are also two series of almost tiny photographs.

'Swimming Study, I' are two incredibly sensual oil paintings by William Gringley of a bikini clad woman at one with the incredibly executed water in a swimming pool. In contrast his other nude studies are simply bodies.

David Mitchell's 'The Last Time We Danced', is an abstract sculpture mostly from found driftwood. On a shelf two figures, clearly male and female 'face' each other while a top shaped piece of wood on a metal strip dangles beneath them. Also dangling are tiny pieces of dust which, with the water worn wood, give a melancholy feel to the piece.

Elementary again is Caroline Troncossi's series, 'Seeds'. Delicate and very small in faint watercolour they seem lost on the lovely white handmade paper, creame matte and blond wood frames.

Strangely there are no people actually engaged in specific sexual acts, well with the exception of 'My Friend Jade Sucking off a Bear', by Daniel Benson which is such a kitschy circus scene it can't be taken very seriously. Another laugh is Kendra Ezekiel's red oversized, 'Carton of Udder Sexploitation'. It's made of tissue paper and fishnet, as in stockings. Also glowing red is her self-explanatory, 'Box of Issues'. Leave it to the women to portray the less positive side of sexuality. Kathy Harriott's 'Sutures', in screen and wire, is a female looking abstract figure covered in sewn up 'wounds' which I assume are sexual in nature. Changing pace again is Sue Rebello's gently sado-masochistic mixed media wall sculptures with rope, leather, lace and a key. In a similar style, though gentler, are works by Joyce Joell Hayden, 'Rx for Sex II' is a pink feather and a blue pill.

'Boy Meets Girls I and II' are some of the most erotically dancing bananas, pears and apples I've ever seen, complemented by organic lines and shapes. These complex, yet simple, watercolour compositions by Kok Wan Lee are dominated by pastel shades of yellow, red and purple. And Angela Gentleman's 'Sexual Energy', lives up to its name. There are variations of red creating an abstract charged female nude flowing with blues and more reds.

While it doesn't push far over the edge into the 'Sex' theme this show is definitely worth viewing for the great variety and some very good art. It runs at the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard until March 5th, 2004.