Will Collieson, Helen Daniel, Jennifer Stobo, Helen Whight and Niall Woolf -- At the Bermuda Society of Arts Gallery in City Hall until November 25 Some very interesting things are happening in Bermuda right now and they have nothing to do with increased crime or talk of independence.

Rather, the source of this activity is artistic, a result of the apparent synergy between the members of an eclectic but equally talented group of five Island-based artists.

The artists -- Bermudians Will Collieson, Jennifer Stobo and Niall Woolf and Britons Helen Whight and Helen Daniel -- have admitted that they have little in common thematically, that the primary value of their collaboration is the inspiration and encouragement they all provide for each other. They, of course, should know, although it is possible to detect some commonalities in the collection of sculpture and wall pieces that is currently on display at City Hall: an interest, for example, in composition and texture, the use (or re-use) of everyday objects and materials, a desire to test artistic limits.

The connection, however, is most profound in the feel of the work, which is youthful, witty, fun. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of experimentation here (in form and concept, with painting, sculpture and film) and a great deal of originality. Often the work simply crackles with energy.

Having said that, the most eye-popping of the various pieces include Helen Whight's "wearable'' mixed-media animal/angel/sun sculptures and Jennifer Stobo's large oil studies of various inanimate objects.

Ms Whight's creations, black and white renderings of such iconic images as a sun, a bull and an angel, represent only the heads of their respective subjects and are highly theatrical in quality. Indeed, they are used to great effect in the short film she has created with Mr. Woolf (a work that actually brings Ms Whight's dream figures to life) and suggest very strongly that Ms Whight might consider a career as a theatre designer. A sculptress of much intelligence, she clearly has a way of making these archetypal images move, of giving mythology flesh.

Ms Stobo's work, on the other hand, owes less to archetypes than to pop and Western-inspired art. In fact, she has revealed two of her main influences as Georgia O'Keeffe and Mark Rothko, whose stamp can be seen in some of Ms Stobo's subject matter (the ubiquitous cow skull) and bold use of colour ( a la Rothko).

Another comparison could be made between Ms Stobo's canvases and the work of Andy Warhol, whose focus on and subsequent iconisation of objects that had not traditionally been regarded as serious matter for art is mirrored in her larger-than-life studies of such everyday items as a teddy bear, a chair and a piece of copper. Like Warhol, she has also produced these images in miniature, an act which in no way diminishes their strength as objects of beauty. Once again, the artist seems to be saying that art, which is truly in the eye of the beholder, is also all around us.

Further testing the boundaries of art (there is a lot of boundary-testing in this show) are Helen Daniel's various mixed-media offerings, some of which started out as drawings but gradually acquired three-dimensionality as their evolution wore on. Moreover, her various painted box creations, which consist of bits and pieces she found along the beach, reveal Ms Daniel's interest in toying with form and function, in playing, as she has said, "compositional games''. In other words, she seems less concerned in these striking if somewhat cryptic works with what the finished product may actually convey than with how that product was created, and less with eliciting an emotional response from the viewer than with engaging him or her in an intellectual discourse.

This, however, is not entirely so with Will Collieson, whose work is in many ways the most mature and sure-footed of the group. While he too is interested in the "building'' process -- he has entitled one of his sculptures here "Construction'' -- he also acknowledges and incites the viewer's emotions, creating rich, wholly original works that both fire the imagination and provoke and challenge thought. Particularly effective in this regard are his "Sum of the Parts I and II,'' a fabulous pair of mixed-media wall pieces -- industrial-age masterpieces if ever there were any -- that incorporate a variety of found or collected materials (wheels, tubing, doll and mannequin parts, buttons and lacing) and reflect a smart, funny artist who apparently draws his inspiration from a wide spectrum of sources.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Collieson also makes use of the well-employed bull image, an apparent favourite of this particular group. In Mr. Collieson's case, a bull's head appears in a variety of wood, metal and mixed-media works, most notably "Ahead of the Game I and II'' and "Tete Double'' (the puns just a small example of this artist's great sense of humour).

Despite the allusions, though, there is nothing stale or hackneyed about any of the work in this collection. Some of the pieces are obviously stronger than others, but they are all nonetheless infused with the same spirit of experimentation, iconoclasm and humour that the Bermudian art scene desperately needs. In short, there is some good, solid stuff here, stuff that should be sought out and supported. No bull.

DANNY SINOPOLI