'Earth, Air and Water' is the title of the current exhibition at the Burnaby Gallery. This time three female artists from three different countries have joined forces to present a mixed media show.

British-born Pamela Holl Hunt (pictured, left) grew up in Canada and studied art and the history of art in Paris, London and Brussels, as well as antique restoration and decoration in the Isle of Wight. She has been a painter for more than 37 years, and her work reflects vigorous experiment over that time. A few years ago she made an analytical decision to paint exclusively in oils, and nature and geometry/architecture are her favoured subjects. Many of her recent paintings reflect a love and feeling for trees.

At the same time the artist is involved with representing the idea of space and exploring spatial depth as form and colour. Through her paintings she likes to express a wide variety of emotions or sensations, and hopes that, through contemplating her paintings, viewers will be moved to experience their own thoughts, dreams or sensations.

While Mrs. Holl Hunt's work has been shown at City Hall and the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard in the past, and hangs in both local and international collections, her debut in the Burnaby Gallery marks the first time she has exhibited anywhere in the past three years. She makes her home in Vancouver, where she lives with her husband and two sons.

Piia Meronen (not shown) studied to be a hairdresser and make-up artist in her native Finland before moving to Sydney, Australia 14 years ago. She began painting in 1993, and from then until last year studied at three of Sydney's art schools, and participated in group exhibitions at two of them. In 1999 she exhibited in that city's Mosman Art Gallery.

Ms Meronen says her paintings represent the direction her art has taken, and her most recent work is described as a way of seeing Nature's energy and vibration.

Last year the artist visited Bermuda to capture its uniqueness on canvas. Through alternating layers of opaque and transparent pigment she achieved colour intensity, contrasting textural dynamics and tonal relationship, and also used the weave of her canvases to enhance relationships between the two-dimensional surface of painting and illusionistic three-dimensional space. She paints in many colours in order to facilitate surface vitality.

Bermudian Caroline Troncossi (pictured , right) is well-known on the local art scene, having participated in many exhibitions here and abroad. A graduate of the US Parson's School of Design, and Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design in Britain, her current work - colour fields rather than formal objects - is deliberately designed to affect viewers' emotions and take them beyond the immediately recognisable visual 'buzz' to another level.

For the past six years the artist has been painting very large abstract oils in all shades of blue, turquoise and green, so chosen because she wants to enhance the concept of "mental escapism" where viewers can enter a safe place from which to enjoy her work.

'Earth, Air and Water' will continue through October 16. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Admission is free. For further information ( 292-8614.