seventh exhibition to the public at the Bermuda Society of Arts Gallery in City Hall on Thursday.

Ms Proctor, whose flower paintings have already been featured in shows at Heritage House and the Arts Centre at Dockyard, began painting less than four years ago. She is the latest artist to be invited to exhibit with Growing, a group that has now been holding regular shows for more than a decade.

Group membership fluctuates from year to year, explains Elmer Midgett: "People might come in, or drop out, according to what their commitments are.'' The concept of informal groups, where artists of similar aesthetic ideologies band together, is not new, he explains. From the medieval guilds to the present day, the idea of joining forces has arisen partly to provide relief from the isolation of the working artist. It is not necessary, he says, for any of the artists to collaborate, but they often join up to paint aspects of Bermuda's scenery together.

Mr. Midgett, who with Mrs. Sheilagh Head and Mrs. Kris Jensen form the original nucleus of the group, began his professional career working in stained glass. Now he works exclusively in oils. His work was chosen for the Society group showing at the Mall Galleries in London. This year, he was selected to participate in the prestigious 38th annual Virginia Beach Boardwalk Show. He takes over next January as President of the Society of Arts.

Mrs. Head is well known for her Bermuda-inspired impressionistic and abstract studies. She studied at Manchester College of Art and L'Academia de Belle Arte in Perugia, Italy.

"Growing is a good name for our group,'' she says, "because we consider that all of us are growing and developing in our art. None of us have reached a plateau where we can rest -- we are still eternal students, seeking to improve our work.'' Mrs. Jensen, who re-joined the group last year, came to Bermuda 16 years ago to work as an illustrator and photographer for Wolfgang Sterrer's publications at the Bermuda Biological Station. Most recently, she has returned from a similar assignment for the Smithsonian in its investigation of the Amazon rainforest in Peru.

This year, she says, she has "loosened up'' her approach, not entirely forsaking her floral studies, but in many cases, switching from watercolour to oils and working on larger canvases.

The Growing exhibition, which runs through October 23, will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mondays to Saturdays. In addition, during the run of The King and I at City Hall, the exhibition will be open from 7.30 each evening until the end of the musical's intermission.

GROWING PAINTER -- Ann Proctor.