Mike Healey is a Scottish artist whose work hasn?t previously been shown in Bermuda. He was encouraged to visit Bermuda to paint by Jay Bluck of Heritage House and this show at the New Heritage Gallery marks his debut as a painter of the Bermuda scene.

His work, for the most part, is vibrant and colourful, though occasionally it can soften into an almost phantasmagorical quality, notably in his paintings of Bermuda dinghies. Given the strength and vivid colour of so much of his work, one tends to doubt that he has ever seen a dinghy actually sailing. He would quickly be disabused of the notion that there is much either soft or dreamy about them.

I share this quibble ? and it is only a quibble ? with his interpretation of Bermuda?s harsh white light. To me it has the effect of almost seeming to bleach our strong colours even as we look at them. In these works it is as though the artist were wearing polarised sunglasses as he painted.

That said, the power of most of his work is remarkable. The dominant historic influence I discern in it is that of Cezanne, particularly in his treatment of shoreline rocks which is directed, almost proto-cubist and, to me, very satisfying indeed. Without this strong treatment this vivid colours would tend to overbalance his work.

Three fine views of Tobacco Bay particularly demonstrate this powerful effect with their dominant red and glowing colours of the water, as do South Beach Cove and After the Hurricane.

Scenes that incorporate our traditional architecture are also largely powerful and suited to the solidity of their subject. Two similar views of Flatts catch the eye as does Yellow Note, a scene of a solid yellow house shaded by a cassia.

The Tucker Museum with the Armoury in the background, however, rather fuzzes out by comparison.

The same problem of insubstantiality reduces the effect of Hamilton, a Front Street scene dominated by my ancestral emporium and the neighbouring Miles Buildings.

Listening, as I?m afraid I always do, to comments of those around me at an opening, I heard some people finding his figures of people a shade weak.

By contrast I found his light touch with his figures an excellent foil for the strength of his work. His scene on Horseshoe Bay in particular delighted me.

There is the customary crowd milling around in and out of the water, vacuous and undirected as are all such beach crowds, aimless once they have arrived at their destination.

His barely sketched figures perfectly render this hot weather ennui. By mild contrast ?Beach Combers?, a couple enjoying a walk along the water?s edge, slightly disconnected from one another and not solidly rendered, are clearly enjoying their purposeless wander, their insubstantially matching their mood.

Perhaps because I have a similar view and also enjoy the wake of a speedboat sharply defining the gleam of our brilliant water, I was taken by his panoramas of the islands sliced through by a single curving white line of foaming wake.

Without this unusual definition I these panoramas tended to fall into the trap of all such views: a tendency towards ?touristiness?. One of them, indeed, is so improbably striated with horizontal lines of islands as to defy the normal conventions of composition.

As with his dinghies, Healey strays a little from his characteristic strength with his rendition of St. Peter?s Church.

Here is a church brittle and almost disintegrating, the suggestion of imminent decay, emphasised by the retreating figure of a woman descending the steps, shoulders hunched almost in fear.

I see permanence, strength and durability in St. Peter?s, Healey sees something quite other, something almost unnerving.

A preoccupation with lobsters punctuates the show at regular intervals, perhaps with the intent of giving the viewer break from the dominant theme of Bermuda.

Aficionados will instantly recognise that these are of the Maine variety and not our local crayfish at all. Two of them are placed on chairs, again recalling Cezanne, but elevated to a new intensity of colour.

This is a show definitely worth seeing, rare in the disparity of work coming from one brush. We become used to seeing, for the most part, characteristic works in an artist?s show, almost expecting to know what we haven?t yet seen because we know the artist well.

Here is an artist we don?t know whose work surprises us from one picture to the next. So great is the variety, in fact, that one will inevitably form quite strong likes and dislikes in one short visit.