The final exhibit for 2016 at the Bermuda Society of Arts is undoubtedly their strongest members’ show of the year. The show is particularly encouraging; in part because of the fact that new artists are exhibited but also that it sees artists developing — emerging and professional — with some meaningful pieces.

The BSoA continues to prove just how well the island’s visual artists can combine to produce quality work that is enjoyably engaging.

Artist development is a pleasure to see. Improved ideas and technique is a good marker of progress.

For example, Lisa Cano-Rowland has a new dimension to her watercolour.

She uses bird motifs and paints with sparing washes but the fluid backgrounds and spattered paint add visual interest, especially evident in Wading Sandpiper.

Washes need to be modified at times but progress is demonstrable as an artist growing in confidence.

Kok Wan Lee’s medium-sized abstracts have figurative elements in his exciting new charcoal work.

He is an artist pushing himself. The glowering brew Teapot No 3 has a magnificent maelstrom of marks. Colour accents are used for the teapots alone.

Free form lines rise as if vapour, defied by a dense, dark mass near the piece’s centre.

Anne Kermode’s highly pattered mosaic-like acrylics have great design. Flying Turtles has well worked geometric patterns of rhythm and balance.

Constructed from concentric circles of coloured dots she uses four circular sections within a square composition to contain her turtle motifs.

Chikako Hoshina’s small encaustic works Tree of Life series are similarly decorative in their patterning.

Nahed Eid exhibits some fun, decorative mixed-media pieces. Laced Up is a series that incorporates jewellery and island-inspired colour.

The painting 1879 (St David’s) by Josiane Tailhardat references the operational date of the East End lighthouse and is a poised geometric study of Bermuda rooflines.

The gouache paintings by Alex Beukes in her Succulent in Bone China series have freshness.

The clean colour and highly reprographic look of a gouache is typical of the opaque watercolour.

Her paintings are well executed despite some drawing flaws.

William Rogers also uses the medium more transparently to good effect in St George’s Truck.

It is interesting to see some etchings in the show.

Helen Van Tonder excels with several limited edition prints that have illustrative appeal. The pieces are rigorous in design, brilliantly executed and have inspired framing.

There is a beautiful addition of colour and embossed paper in Nanakwaklip On-Daisy.

Karl Sternath’s large acrylic and epoxy pictures including Stemsi No 215 have colour contours that appear to blend before your eye.

The carving in cedar by Alan Webb, White Tail Eagle, has presence and is stained in two tones.

The breadth of the work exhibited is remarkable and has a quality that makes the trip to the City Hall gallery a rewarding one.

It is no surprise the BSoA can stage such a strong show but their facility to enable the best should not be underestimated.

Some works (not reviewed) have been taken as gifts for Christmas. Be sure to visit soon. The show runs until January 4.