The Bermuda Society of Arts? Open members Show, which opened last Friday and runs until March 15, is something of a mixed bag as is usual for these unjuried shows.

There is some remarkable talent mixed in amongst the frankly amateur. The show opens with an interesting ? if Modigliani indebted ? self-portrait by Barbara Verdie, an artist I don?t remember seeing before. It is good enough to whet the appetite for more.

Sure enough she reappears later in the show where one discovers that Mrs. Verdie has three quite distinct styles, the least appealing of which depicts either greyhounds racing furiously out of the frame or horses being ridden on a gloomy morning on a beach. The latter lacks but one horse to be positively apocalyptic. There is also a well-executed still life, ?Red pots?, academic but nevertheless pleasing.

The most arresting Verdie style is that of ?Light Fantastic? and ?Pigeon Berries?. The former is achieved in a reductive way that is subtly suggestive of oriental works, but nevertheless enjoys its own unique subtleties and contrasts. The dominant feature is a tree the leaves of which are reduced to almost flat masses of the brilliant colour suggested by its title. This is contrasted with three or four stark tree trunks and a mottled, restless sky, the whole achieving an impressive and unusual result. ?Pigeon berries? uses the same flat reductive style in individually delineated berries in the characteristic series of clusters grown on that plant. These are set against equally uninflected leaves in a smoothly graduated composition for a very rewarding result.

One must hunt around the gallery for these works as they are not hung together, the besetting sin of the Society of Arts. The same problem afflicts Joyce Beale?s two batiks. ?Early Sunrise, 1933? is dramatically composed in a formal, balanced style and rendered in her usual careful but gently coloured style. The climax of the work is the sunrise of the title found at the apex of the composition and fragmented into a brilliant abstract of light. This is perhaps the finest of Ms Beale?s work to be seen for some time. Her other batik, at the other end of the gallery, is of sandpipers and is unusually unstructured and impressionistic but as subtly coloured and restful to the eye as ever. Ms Beale steps out of character in this exhibition by also showing a small watercolour.

Stella Shakerchi shows two charmingly understated watercolours the better of which, ?BMDS through the Bandstand?, cleverly obliterates most of the Victoria Park bandstand to create a lacy foreground for her soft interpretation of what is not one of Hamilton?s most handsome buildings. Some well-disposed soul might well buy it and present it to the BMDS.

As Amy Evans? work becomes ever more simplified and spare, so it seems does her husband Vaughan?s work become more complex. At the moment they are the Jack Spratt and his wife of the local art scene. Amy?s ?Wall, San Miguel de Allende? is a mixed media representation of exactly that ? a wall. The wall is relieved only by a road sign, the shadow of two electrical wires and part of a dark doorway to provide the escape. Its genius lies in the texture and colour of the wall itself. This wall of deceptive simplicity is juxtaposed with her husband?s ?Winter Poinciana?, a complex relief wood print of the tree in its winter bareness, every gnarl and twist exaggerated and tortured into a phantasmagoria of tangles.

I have become satiated with representations of the Gombeys. Yes, they are colourful; yes, they are agile and acrobatic and yes, we can have too much of a good thing. Wrong again, Andrew! The Gombeys are here yet again, but in strength. Vaughan Evans? two relief wood prints, one coloured, one not, are intricate, stylised and strong. The Evans? sojourn in Mexico informs both of them, for without their characteristic peacock head dresses they could be taken for Aztec or Mayan art. The poses are stylised in a way characteristic of Aztec and Mayan art and the costumes could as easily be the elaborate feathered capes of the pre-Columbian priests and kings of Central America as the spangles and froth of Bermuda?s Gombeys.

The really splendid Gombey presence in the show, however, is ?Dance Bermuda?. Though only barely visible and soon obscured after entering the gallery it instantly grabs the eye and it is unmistakably the work of Sheilagh Head. When Mrs. Head lets herself loose on a large abstract the result is always brash and always startling. In this case it is splendidly evocative of the Gombeys without so much as the vestige of representational touch to tie itself down unless one counts a couple of crossing diagonals as representative of the ties that bind the peacock feathers. It is a gloriously vivid, vibrant work that shouts ?Head? as strongly as it shouts ?Gombey?. None of these Gombey works may be to everyone?s taste, but they certainly provided an antidote to my growing dislike of representations of the Gombeys.

As we have come to expect, photography is once again a strong element in this show. This time the work of Scott Stallard dominates. Mr. Stallard has been to Namibia and despite the extraordinary beauty of his photographs he confirms my determination not to go there myself. This is a hot, sere country of astonishing beauty but, one suspects, with humidity so low as to be almost absent. The crisp clarity and sharp shadows, the deep blue of the sky and the absence of anything growing all suggest a terrifying aridity.

Mr. Stallard?s already well known eye unerringly picks compositions and colour schemes to underline all this. The hot desert colours are spectacularly contrasted with cold sky and grey, dead wood, the balance of strong shadow and clear light are luminous in their effect.

The other photographers, of course, haven?t been to Namibia. Thus their work pales by comparison with the inhospitable Namibian vibrancy, but this odious comparison doesn?t diminish the quality of their work. I am getting used to digitally manipulated photographs and so managed to enjoy the bird superimposed on its habitat in a way that would have suggested a double exposure in simpler times. ?I, Watching U?, the photograph in question, is by Lawrence Grant. Also by Mr. Grant was ?King of the Night?, a photograph of the cathedral serenely presiding over the architectural shambles that has become Hamilton. Amazingly the aggressively brightly coloured RAM Re building, ugly enough without drawing more attention to itself by its lurid colour, tones down to something near acceptability in this night time photograph of blended contrasts. His ?Busy Bee?, dramatic and effective though it was, perhaps owed some of its success to the recent show of Robin Judah?s work.

The simple but effective three archival digital prints by Jolene Bean were impressive. Dr. Bean has a fine eye for the direct application of good composition without which almost any photograph stops also being art. The eye of the photographer is his secret and Walter Cooke?s ?Awaiting Resurrection? is exemplary of this. He sees a rather mundane and saccharine Victorian effigy in white marble in contrast to its home in a crumbling Gothic church lit by less than splendid stained glass windows as a different kind of statement. Hence his title and the impact of the photograph.

Fortunately there are still those willing to work in black and white Lyndsey Cook?s four shots of Old San Juan were all more effective in black and white than they might have been in colour. In every case colour would have detracted from the statement the photographer so successfully makes.

In the adjacent Edinburgh Gallery there is to be found a rather grim piece of ?Installation Art?. Installation Art is a fad amongst some artists that has surprisingly outlived its shelf life and still crops up again and again. Its essentially ephemeral nature should have allowed it to fade from the scene long ago. It hasn?t.

In this case the work is mis-titled ? or perhaps ironically titled ? ?Accessibility?. Whatever its purpose or message, it certainly hits one hard in the gut. Set behind coils of tangled barbed wire, three egg shaped and coloured balls stand on pedestals. Each is multiply pierced by a variety of rusty nails and other nasty looking implements of acute discomfort. Behind these is a wall panel, again pierced by more rusty nails and other, larger sharp weapons.

These all stick out of the wall horizontally in a way that makes clearer identification difficult, but the work is lit so that their shadows emphasise them dramatically.