Bermuda Society of Arts Winter Members Show THE Bermuda Society of Arts' unjuried Winter Members Show is, as such shows always are, a very mixed bag. With 102 exhibits it is a large show, but not as large as other recent shows. Quite why the Society chose to open the show on a Friday a week before Christmas, when traffic is a nightmare and parking next to impossible boggles the mind. The show does, however, remain open until January 17. I would postpone a visit until after the New Year.The first works to strike the eye are three strong charcoal life studies by the delightfully named April Dawn. At last we have an artist with an eye for the drama of the human figure who also actually understands the all-important structure beneath the skin. Her strong, muscular hands actually grasp other parts of the body in a way that puts visible pressure on the skin. Anyone who intends to draw or paint the human figure should go in to the City Hall just to see these three charcoal drawings.

I never know quite what to make of works like Theresa Airey's reconstructed old photographs. I usually find the subject matter interesting for one reason or another, but the artistic result always seems stifled. Thus The Monarch Coming into Hamilton viewed across Fairylands Creek and Agars Island has historic interest but little artistic merit. The reconstruction of an aerial photo-spread advertising the Belmont Hotel and Golf Course of some 80 or so years ago is enough to make a grown man weep when he thinks of the monstrous "developmental" assaults that have occurred over the intervening years on what once was a place of not inconsiderable charm.

To counter this antiquarian interest Ms Airey has had a good deal of fun playing digitally with what I take to be four of her own photographs. In the battle between art and technique that always bothers my mind and judgment with digitally manipulated photography I would say that in Multi-Coloured Palm Leaves technique has definitely succeeded in producing art.

With advancing years Al Seymour has finally learned to relax. Two of his three watercolours,>View from North Shore and Hamilton Harbour Sunday Morning are relaxed impressions of great charm. I would have restrained his enthusiasm for hot pink in the latter, however. The best of the Seymours, however, was separated from the othersI>Still Standing<$>, a chimney on an old ruin, has both a relaxed technique and an infusion of romance about it.

Joyce Beale's batiks are unfortunately spread at apparent random about the gallery, making comparisons or purchases somewhat difficult. The two parrots of Tete a Te<$>are in the artist's usual delicate colour scheme, but I found Squawking in the Rain rather chalFour Eye Fish, too, was a bit chalky. More in her usual vein is Sweep, ep<$>, an intriguing composition of gothic arches. Her True Love and a Pear Tree, however, is absolutely luminous with golden light and in a technique new for this art. Twas the Night Before Christmas, hanging in the entrance lobby, is as fun as it sounds, but only useful for a couple of weeks a year.

The Froncioni family are again showing their talented photography, the star turn being Joe's Soles NYC<$>, an intriguing composition achieved by shooting upwards at a translucent spiral staircase with the soles of the feet of those ascending and descending making the punctuation. In photography the eye of the photographer is the key to art. To notice such a bizarre scene at all is an achievement. To turn it into art separates the artist from the photographer.

Shelly Hamill's Tile Mosaiudoku<$> fascinates with its gleaming surface of contrapuntal tile strips, but the Sudoku theme doesn't carry as well with the rather dull Wood Block Sudoku Large. With the same ti, but Small <$>is far more successful because there is more relief and contrast in the placing of the blocks of wood. Her Sudoku inspired paintings, in comparison, lose a good deal of strength.

Spread about the gallery in a way that makes some of them difficult to find are Deirdre Furtado's banana dolls. Some of them are the festive, exuberant dolls we are accustomed to, but some are smaller. These>Angels<$> are notable for their simplicity and the skill with which Mrs. Furtado has used the sculptural texture and shape of her leaves to create her angels' wings.

In the Edinburgh Gallery is a show by Scott Hill and his wife Lisa Howie. It consists of photographs taken in South America and accompanying written verses. The photography is interesting and occasionally, as with the one of the shadow of a chair lift on the snow below, has artistic merit. The photographer's persistent habit of "book-matching" his photographs, however, quite soon becomes tiresome. I am no judge of verse and will therefor withhold any comment on Ms. Howie's contribution.

I take this opportunity to wish my readers and my editor and colleagues at the Mid-Ocean News the happiest of Christmases and the best of Years.

Photos show the wrk of Anita Prowse-Simons (1), Joe Froncioni (2), Chai T (3) and Frank Dublin (4).<@$p>