THE summer doldrums seem to have missed the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard altogether. Their summer open members? show is a resounding success. This is in no small part because it introduces new artists onto what is becoming our increasingly competitive arts scene.

Notable in this show is a watercolourist, Alan Noyes, who will give Chris Marson a run for his money. His technique is almost as spare as Mr. Marson's, but informed with a little more detail and rather stronger contrasts at his points of emphasis. Mr. Noyes must be a recent arrival in the island as none of his five works is of Bermuda. All are on the cool, even somber side, even the two warmed by evening light. One in particular was cool to the point of inducing shivers. was of a gray beach under a lowering gray sky sweeping away into the distance in a long curve.

The almost infinitesimal punctuation consisted of a parent and child in the middle distance silhouetted in the damp air paddling at the edge of the water. It was, perhaps, a Cape Cod scene.

Mr. Noyes' , equally spare but quite different in style, was of a gaff rigged ketch half silhouetted against an evening sky in a river estuary, its sails rather slack for the title. It is a painting that could quite easily have been on the obvious side but isn't. It has subtlety and impact without being in the least showy.

In a show otherwise rather irritatingly hung with works by artists spread higgledy-piggledy around the gallery rather than being hung together in a group, most of Chris Marson's watercolours were hung in a way that made it easy to see his paintings in juxtaposition with those of Mr. Noyes. It is a splendid sight and makes the long haul to the Dockyard entirely worthwhile by themselves.

Mr. Marson's suggestive impressions are as good as ever, with and particularly catching my eye. Perhaps it was the soggy Saturday afternoon on which I went to the gallery that attuned me so well to the paintings of gray and clammy days. Whatever the weather this collection of watercolours is as good as any I have seen in Bermuda.

They weren't, of course, the only watercolours to be seen. Molly Godet's architectural watercolours would also rate highly if only she could keep her buildings level and plausible architecturally.would be just fine if the building wasn?t sliding downhill. would be charming if only the roof hadn't buckled sharply between the chimneys. What some would call artist's licence can become merely sloppy work when taken to extremes. It leaves at least some viewers acutely uncomfortable.

Structurally sound was the best of her works, where the windows and their muntins are formally structured within the frame of the painting as background to the venerable cactus.

The same is true of human (and animal) anatomy. Dean Barclay's , an oil painting of a small boy standing in a window would have been a powerful painting if the little boy didn't look deformed.

As it is I found myself shying away from the painting in the kind of discomfort almost all of us feel in the presence of physical deformity. Equally strong a painting was his, but I was unable to detect a meaning behind it.

His , though listed in the catalogue, I couldn't find at all and that was not for want of endless walking around the gallery to collect the randomly dispersed works of individual artists in my memory.

Not listed in the catalogue at all was the single work by Joyce Joell Hayden, a splendid impression in oil of looking up through the canopy of an abundantly flowered poinciana. Verging on the abstract this work is among Ms Joell Hayden's best and deserved to be both catalogued and included.

Kathy Harriott's small acrylic abstractions become ever more sophisticated and much depends on her choice of colour scheme.

Two pairs, one in warm colours and one in cool blues were entirely felicitous but I found the combination of gray blues and orange rusts in her less than comfortable. Given the title, perhaps that was the intent.

Three batik works by Joyce Beale confirm her reputation as a thoughtful and skilled colourist.

Stronger and brighter than her usual work was the almost vividthat unfortunately wasn't hung for contrast next to her more subtly hued , a Portuguese Man o' War looked at up through the water, and . The latter two were hung as mobiles turning gently in the breeze and enhanced by their occasional backlighting.

Ending as I began with a new artist, Jason Harris is a Bermudian and has just started painting. The way he paints is by no means tentative, however.

He employs a very heavy, textured impasto the effect of which was considerably reduced by the directly frontal lighting customary in most galleries. Some of his work is circumscribed by his urge to work on cedar.

In one case this merely consists of painting within a rather rococo cedar tray, but in another he employs a weirdly shaped slice from an old stump that distorts the entire panting to suit its shape.

The best of this group of paintings was an intricate painting of houses and quarries spreading up a hill and painted in the mixed media essential to his style of work.

It bore close study with considerable aplomb. Infuriatingly hung around a corner so that no comparison was possible with the other work was a mixed media abstract titled .

Mildly geometric and restrained in its colour scheme this painting could have been by an entirely different artist from the others.

It was restful in quality, even soothing and is the kind of work with which it would be perfectly comfortable to live. Mr. Harris is a artist to watch.

For the summer this is easily the best show in town. Prepare to spend some time at it.