rock star than a painter, with people queuing up to acquire one of his paintings, presents another one-man show of his latest work this week at the Windjammer Gallery.

Bruce Stuart, who shot to fame when his 1989 show sold out in 12 minutes and was astonished to find people lined up outside the gallery for four hours before his 1990 show opened, is keeping his fingers crossed for this, his first exhibition in two years.

"I still get nervous,'' he admits. "You can never judge what the market is like.'' Obviously, for an artist who makes his livelihood from his paintings, this is a tense time. And this year, he is also keeping his fingers crossed that his latest book, entitled "The Art of Bruce Stuart'', scheduled for release at the beginning of next month, will arrive well in time for the Christmas gift season.

For this Bermudian artist, whose realistic images of Bermudian architecture have gained him incredible popularity, his rise to fame has had something of a fairy-tale quality: educated at Dellwood School, his only art training consisted of a course taken with Diana Amos at the Bermuda College and his first efforts to attract notice were meticulously painted cut-outs of Bermuda houses.

But he persisted, through trial and error, and by 1977 was proudly exhibiting his first acrylic painting at City Hall for the Bermuda Society of Arts. The Windjammer Gallery, whom he says "believed in me from the very start'' gave him his first one-man show in 1983.

In preparation for his show, Mr. Stuart has spent much of the last year painting in New Hampshire, a necessary move, he says, with Bermuda's social pressures and for someone who works out of his home and "at the mercy'' of those who perhaps fail to realise that his painting is a full-time job.

Mr. Stuart, who believes that art in Bermuda has "progressed by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years'', and says his own work is now much "freer'' these days, is convinced that artists such as himself have a serious contribution to make to Bermuda's society.

"Artists, especially if you happen to have long hair, are still targeted by some segments of the community, but we need the artist because he provides balance in a society. Especially in a society like Bermuda, which is bogged down in materialism.

"We need both, yet we tend to criticise an artist because he is seen as being on the fringe -- unlike the native Indian culture, for instance, where the artist was always an intrinsic part of the warrior and hunting system. In our commercial world, we have been de-sensitised to being free and feeling good about ourselves.'' These sentiments reveal a surprising paradox in an artist whose work is, by his own admission, traditional in approach. "Both my subject matter and the way I paint makes people think I'm about 85. Sometimes, I guess they get quite a shock when they see me!'' Noting that he has around 40 pieces in his new show, Mr. Stuart promises some surprises, while revealing that three pieces will be in oil, a significant departure for an artist who has consistently worked in acrylics.

"Stephen Card (the marine artist) kept telling me I should try it and made me go up to his studio in Somerset. I started with a boat scene and we ended up painting for about six hours in one stretch. There is a certain flow to oil, whereas acrylic is very tight and rigid.'' He loves to take fellow artists around the Island, showing them secret places and pointing out hidden gems of architecture and landscape that are rarely discovered on routine tourist excursions.

"I believe that I was given a gift and I love to share that gift with as many people as I can. I know that some artists are astonished when I tell them I never went away to art school -- some of them have studied for years what seems to come naturally to me.'' Mr. Stuart is donating 10 percent of the proceeds from his new book to the Masterworks Foundation, of which he is a trustee. The Art of Bruce Stuart, with text by Daniel Dempster will be on sale for $58.50 at the Masterworks outlets at the National Gallery and at 41 Front Street. In addition, there will be a limited edition of 350 copies in a presentation case, signed and numbered with a print entitled "Grounded'', for $110.

The title of his Windjammer show, which opens to the public on Friday, November 20, is "Still Painting''. "That's my answer when people ask me what I'm up to,'' he laughs, "so I thought that would be an appropriate name for my show.'' STILL PAINTING is the name of artist Mr. Bruce Stuart's new one-man show which opens this week at the Windjammer Gallery.