Bermuda Showcase: Different Strokes Two, a rotating art show at the Lighthouse Restaurant

I AM not sure what to expect from a "rotating" art show, bit the opening group's work at the Lighthouse Gallery wasn't really up to expectations. It opens with the rather odd work of Kevin Morris of which there are nine examples.

Seven of them consist of unintelligible minutiae achieved in acrylic and arranged in uneven stripes across the canvas. Another is more of the same, but larger and the last consists of the same unintelligible minutiae not arranged in stripes. A great deal of careful work must go into these canvases, but on me it is entirely wasted.

Ruth Vallis seems to be something close to a beginner watercolourist and, with one exception, tends to tourist-trap subject matter. The one exception is a charming rendering of a very little girl reading a very large book. It is a delightful concept but needs a more confident technique than Ms Vallis has yet mastered.

The best of her other work was a view along the railway trail with cool shadows and unfussy style. Her other works were of similar subject matter, but with a more laboured treatment. Once again I make my plea to all artists to stay away from sunsets. In nature their glory is ephemeral. Once painted, however, they are merely gaudy forever.

Two works by Brenda Gitschner are rendered in primitive style with a clear debt to Haitian art. This kind of painting excites some and leaves others cold, but it does require an experienced technique and the thorough knowledge of anatomy that permits rules to be broken with confidence and effect.

Joyce Joel-Hayden tends to the fussy in her paintings and all too often resorts to the application of glitter with its inevitably cheapening effect.

Happily there is no glitter to be seen in her four works here, but her pair of watercolours, Dockyard Walls, are nevertheless fussy, particularly considering the exceptionally solid nature of the subject matter.

Two pastels complete her group. The first, Nature's Shadows, is a bit fuzzy, though of a pleasing colour scheme. Tsamani on the other hand is a stunning small abstract of what might be waves. Indeed at first I thought the title was "Tsunami". The colour scheme and composition is admirably balanced and the execution crisp and satisfying. It is the first time I have seen Ms Joel-Hayden assay an abstract and I would encourage her to do more.

Marlene Jantzen is a would-be Chris Marson with a long way to go in terms of technique.

Her one scene that is not local, Long Beach, Vancouver Island, is easily the best of her group of six paintings, soft and understated in both colour scheme and in technique.

Her attempt at portraiture, Quite Contrary, is, as is almost always the case with watercolour portraits, a disaster. The late great William Russell-Flint could do it, but no one else comes to mind.

At his best Otto Trott is one of Bermuda's leading artists, but he needs a large canvas to provide the space for his bold, commanding style. When he paints on a small canvas he merely shrinks his bold style to suit the reduced scale until it becomes not commanding, but fussy.

All five of his works in this show are on small canvasses and can, at best, be described as tourist-trap works. At the Lighthouse Restaurant this is probably a sensible course of action for the "gallery" is merely one room of a popular tourist destination and restaurant.

It is, however, difficult to go to see the art because the view usually outclasses the paintings and the gallery is frequently full of chattering visitors more concerned with their food than with the paintings on the wall.

This difficulty is compounded by the glare of a Bermuda day, which easily outshines the gallery lighting and makes the paintings hard to see.

This was particularly so last Sunday morning with its towering cumulus clouds and sweeping rainsqualls in the distance.

Despite getting there at the restaurant's opening time of 9 a.m., I was quickly joined by a dozen or more visitors intent on their breakfasts and quite unaware of the paintings on the wall.