The Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard opens its 2005 season with a show entitled ?Drawing?. This turns out to have been a fairly exacting challenge for its members and the results are largely impressive.

The indefatigable Kok Wan Lee opens the show with a series of six charcoal works occasionally enhanced by highlights, perhaps in gouache, All have their roots in oriental art and all are of bare branches. The first three are calm and contemplative in nature, the second three tempestuous and wild. It is a ?build? that makes an admirable introduction to the show.

Giles Campbell?s first work, ?Elbow Reach?, is in a combination of charcoal and pastel, a treatment I found rather heavy. ?Tucked Away?, a panoramic view in graphite enjoyed a disciplined directional hatching that lightened the work and lent it interest beyond its subject. Continuing the theatrical ?build? established by Mr. Lee, Mr. Campbell?s third work, ?Remains of the Day? was in monochrome white pastel on a very dark green textured paper. Its subject was the ruined house visible on its otherwise unbuilt on hill in Southampton. The treatment was again highly disciplined and the effect lent mystery to an already romantic ruin.

Peter Lapsley?s eight graphite figurative studies done on very smooth paper were uniformly well composed and interesting. He sees his models well and has both male and female subjects. Models are hard to come by in Bermuda, male models almost impossible. With such high quality of drawing and composition I once again found myself wishing there were someone in Bermuda to teach anatomy for the artist. Like any other discipline it is a little tiresome to master, but once mastered it makes figurative work no more daunting than any other subject. Mr. Lapsley?s ninth study was enhanced by a sparely applied colour wash and was much more abstract. Much as I liked his graphite studies, this was his outstanding work.

Vernon Clarke?s fascination with reflections in spherical surfaces produces six very strong, mysterious and vital works in meticulously rendered charcoal. In these works almost nothing quite responds to gravity, enhancing the mystery surrounding them all. Added to this was the occasional page or two of printed verse distorted through highly curved lenses. I was perversely gratified to see that the reflection of a spherical reflection in another reflecting sphere defeated him. Technical wizardry evidently has its limits.

Staying in the spherical mode is the oblique intensity of the parrot?s eye in two exacting pen and ink works by Peggy Peniston. She perfectly captures both the intensity of gaze and the slightly quizzical indifference of those rather aloof birds. Also in pen and ink are ?He? and ?She? by Martha Idh Gauntlett. These two small works derive from the work of Aubrey Beardsley, but in a modern, slightly disconnected, but appealing style.

Chris Marson?s retirement is proving extremely productive. Not only has he branched out into very successful oils, he now has joined his fellows in some fascinating drawings. There are four sketches in the ?Ferry? series, all of heads, perhaps of subjects briefly encountered while riding the ferries. They are in pencil (nothing so high-falutin? as graphite for Mr. Marson) and are more detailed than one might expect from this artist. Each one is fascinating and if my guess is right ferry riders should go up to the Dockyard to see if he or she is the subject of one of them. They are inexpensive and would certainly qualify as a family heirloom.

He also shows two pen and wash portrait sketches, of which I thought the sparely rendered, idiosyncratic ?Pompano Beach? a particularly fine work. Mr. Marson noticed, as did I, the appearance at the dockyard in the last days of December of the , once the and now one of the last surviving ships with beautiful nautical lines left sailing on a sea crowded with ugly hotels moving around on barges. He caught her in a splendid pencil sketch.

Mr. Marson?s son, Rick Marson, shows considerable courage and no little independence of spirit in hanging a pastel of his own cheek by jowl with his father?s work. He is not a chip off the old block by any means. His pastel work depicts a dark and gloomy wood, dense and forbidding, just barely relieved by a hint of escape in a tiny dash of sky. It would serve admirably as an illustration for a volume of Grimm?s fairytales.

There was an unlabeled pencil portrait of ?Alex?, very powerful, indeed forceful in nature. A dramatic portrait of great character, it was executed with admirable control of the medium. After studying the signature I couldn?t be certain of the name of the artist. Once again, I appeal to the powers that be at the Dockyard Arts Centre to provide a numbered catalogue.

In this computerised age they are simple enough to produce and are very useful to the serious viewer. Such a catalogue would also avoid a grumpy reviewer. Artists take note.

There is a number of other figurative works, none of them uninteresting, but all marred by a lack of anatomical underpinning. The hip bone, as the old song points out, is connected to the thigh bone. Now hear the word of the Lord. If the bones are not connected and held together by muscle and sinew the artist?s effort will, inevitably fail to completely satisfy and thus fail to get the intended message across. Rules can always be broken deliberately to achieve a wanted result, but the rule must be known and understood in the first place.