Bill Ming is well known as an artist, especially as a sculptor in Britain, as well as in his homeland, Bermuda. Nevertheless, his exhibition in the Rick Faries Gallery at the Masterworks Museum is surprising because his show consists exclusively of collage art, not sculpture.

For those not in the know, collage is an artistic creation made with various materials — such as magazine clippings and other printed items, cloth, etc — which are glued to a flat surface to create an artistic expression.

Ming has skilfully composed bit and pieces about Bermuda that he has collected over the years to tell the story of his Bermuda upbringing as he remembers it and believe me, he has a sharp memory, despite his 80 years.

More than that, in the exhibition entitled Bermuda: Stories in Memory, intermingled within his collages are vignettes of his impressive drawings.

Ming seemingly, has an innate sense of design. Even as a child, he says, he was always making art, making drawings, making things. It seems true that some are born with certain innate talents and in Ming’s case it is art and storytelling. In this exhibition he has combined both.

Ming’s compositions are dense, much as Analytical cubism is dense, not that Ming is a cubist, but in his compositions there is very little room for spaciousness. His compositions are crowded and mostly on the picture plain.

Sometimes when visiting exhibitions, I pretend I am buying a work of art and thus I seek one that is most appealing, but with the Ming show, that is not possible, as I want the entire show. It’s not possible to single out any one piece that has more appeal than any other work.

Still, I will single out one work, to highlight an artist that seemingly inspired Ming. I write of a particular work, whose title suggests that possibility; it is Romare Bearden’s Backyard.

Romare Bearden was also known for his collage art. He was a mixed-race American artist who, as they say, could pass, but choose to be honest about his background as an expression in his art and thus singled out with special emphasis, his African American experience.

Ming also deals with the Black experience. I think of his Last Black Resident (Tucker’s Town).

Although Ming is now known and respected in his homeland, it was not always so. His becoming known here is in itself, another fascinating story.

Until the Bermuda National Gallery’s Bill Ming: Homecoming Exhibition in March 1994, Ming was largely unknown in his homeland; especially to the art-loving Bermuda community. Doubtless, he was known by his family and possibly by his schoolmates, but otherwise unknown.

A couple of years before Ming’s BNG solo exhibition, there appeared in The Royal Gazette a photo of a sculpture with the caption that Bermudian Bill Ming was the recipient of a Henry Moore Sculpture Fellowship in Britain.

For most of the Bermuda public, this award was most likely meaningless, after all, to most here in Bermuda, Henry Moore was likewise unknown, but to those of us in the local art community, he was the foremost 20th century sculptor. That Ming had been the recipient of such an prestigious fellowship was significant indeed.

At that time I was on the Bermuda Arts Council with Ruth Thomas, who was the island’s cultural officer. Having seen the photo in the morning newspaper and realising its importance I phoned her to find out what she knew about Ming, but alas, like the rest of us, he was unknown to even her, however, she responded that she would find out.

Ms Thomas, not only found out, she also got his phone number. Since I was also on the BNG’s Exhibitions Committee, we called Ming and since I was shortly to fly to Britain, it was arranged that we should meet. He also told us that he was to have a solo exhibition that summer at the Blue Coat Gallery in Liverpool, which I was also able to visit. I was therefore the go-between linking Ming, his British exhibition and its exhibition catalogue and the BNG. It was through this avenue that it was decided that the BNG would exhibit his sculpture and introduce Ming to his compatriots.

Ming grew up in a segregated community. He left Bermuda for Britain in 1971 to further his education, and returned some 23 years later for a solo exhibition in the island’s national gallery. More than that, his exhibition opening was be attended by the Queen. I was there in the audience, so witnessed Ming’s deeply emotional response. It was heart-warming to see. It was this exhibition that put Ming on the Bermuda map; his homeland’s map.

Now some 31 years later, Ming is having another homecoming exhibition, this time in at the Masterworks Museum.

The exhibition is curated by Daisy Gould, who like Ming is a Bermudian domiciled in Britain, where she is the assistant curator of Live Programmes at the Serpentine Gallery. Her ongoing academic and curatorial research focuses on Caribbean art and theory with specialism in contemporary Bermudian art.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Ms Gould has undertaken the production and editing of a book, essentially a catalogue of the exhibition, that many will want to purchase, as a memento of this monumentally important exhibition.

The book was underwritten by the Bermuda Arts Council and the Coralisle Group Ltd. Thank you. Thanks also to those who wrote essays that appear in the book; Daisy Gould, Edwin Smith and the poem of Yesha Townsend.

This is one terrific exhibition. It’s a must-see show. The exhibition continues through May 10.