Alan Noyes has been associated with Bermuda for 40 years, both as a visitor and in his professional career as an architect and consultant between 1968 and 1989, but this is the first time he has been back as a Masterworks Foundation artist-in-residence, as result of which he is currently holding his first solo exhibition here in the Rose Garden Gallery of the Botanical Gardens.

Mr. Noyes retired and became a full-time, professional artist 20 months ago, and in that capacity has thoroughly enjoyed returning to Bermuda, accompanied by his wife, to capture in watercolours a variety of subjects, including land and seascapes, during his re-exploration of the Island he and his family once called home.

Painting in wet-in-wet technique, the artist is particularly fascinated by the play of light on his subjects, and many of his paintings, especially his seascapes, have an almost ethereal luminescence about them. Back in East Anglia, where the family home is in Suffolk, it is the damp, misty sunrises and the glint of light on tidal estuaries of which he is most fond.

Small wonder, then, that Mr. Noyes describes the renowned 19th century English Romantic landscape painter and watercolourist J.M.W. Turner, often called 'the painter of light', as "my idol".

"If I could paint like him I would be happy," he says. Indeed, it was Turner's most famous painting, 'The fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up', which inspired the artist to seek out the decommissioned local tugboat, Forceful, at Dockyard, and paint a portion of it before being towed away to a watery grave. The finished work is among the more than 30 paintings in his eponymous exhibition. Like many overseas artists, Mr. Noyes had to adjust to Bermuda's light, which is totally different from England's of course, and he was also concerned whether or not he had the right palette with him because our colours are so much more vibrant.

"It was a struggle to start with at first, but there are so many subjects here. Every time you go around a corner there is a painting. I have really enjoyed it," he says.

While the artist has drawn for as long as he can remember, and has always painted in watercolour, both for pleasure and in his chosen career, he also paints in acrylics. Having spent most of his career as an architect, he says watercolours allow him "to escape the rigidity of architectural discipline", although he enjoys "the odd detail of indulgence when the subject demands it".

Mr. Noyes studied art at Northgate Grammar School in Ipswich, and later attended the Ipswich School of Art before training and qualifying as an architect at Southend School of Architecture in England. In his new professional career, he paints daily in his studio near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, a pattern which he has also continued here.–"Painting is experience and practice," he notes.

At home, Mr. Noyes is an active member of a local art group, and recently exhibited at the East Anglian branch of the Royal Watercolour Society in Cambridge, and also sold one of his paintings to the Society.

"It is really quite an accolade to exhibit and sell," he says.

He also exhibited with another artist in Snape Maltings, Sussex, and participated in a group show at the Arts Centre at Dockyard last year.

Mr. Noyes first came to the Island in 1968 as an architect with the then-Public Works Department. He met his wife Rita, a nurse, when both were active members of the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society, and the couple went on to have two sons, Christopher and Timothy, the latter a marine biologist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS). Both sons attended Saltus Grammar School before the family returned to England in 1972.

Eleven years later, Mr. Noyes came back for three months as a consultant to the Bermuda Housing Corporation, and twice more between 1984 and 1989, when he worked as an architect with Woodbourne Associates and then-Bath/Butterworth.

After finally settling with his family in Suffolk, the then-architect had a contract with the American architectural firm, Hok International, running a large, two-year project.

When that ended, Mrs. Noyes suggested that her husband retire and paint full time.

"She promised to keep me in the manner in which I had become accustomed," he jests.

Certainly, the artist-in-residence has no regrets about his decision, and neither will anyone who visits his current solo exhibition, which continues until December 29. For gallery hours see the Exhibitions section of the Bermuda Calendar.