ART is to combine with another popular medium today as Masterworks' Artists Up Front . . . Street series resumes.

Although a week later than expected due to Hurricane Fabian, a collection of oil paintings by Jennifer Stobo are to grace the Front Street gallery. And, to make the exhibit a bit more interesting, the artist has included a clever twist.

"In my mind, the most successful paintings are those that appear as though they have been painted with ease," she said. "The work is pleasing to the viewer as it has appeared like magic. The viewer does not see what goes into that final painting as that lies beneath it, brushstroke upon brushstroke, in a series of corrections."

To exemplify that magic, the artist recorded the creation of each of her paintings and will display the process on television during the week-long exhibition.

"I endeavoured for the show to be about the creation of the show itself. I wanted to share with the viewer the experience of the paintings being painted," she explained. "This way, the viewer is left with experiencing individually, as he pleases, the magic and frustration, the decisions and corrections, that evolve as the painting evolves.

"I rented a television from Holmes Williams & Purvey Ltd. - who were really good about supplying me with a flat-screen TV - and, as I did each painting, I recorded (it all). I had a video camera set up and I would push record, paint maybe three brush strokes, step away and press stop. In the final, once all the editing has been done, you'll just see brush strokes appearing."

According to the artist, the experience lent her ideas for future work. And, though it proved successful and she would attempt it again, the process was time consuming.

"Incredibly so," she admitted. "Really, on the screen each painting lasts maybe 40 seconds, but that's ten hours (of work) in that 40 seconds - deciding which brush stroke goes where, mixing the colours on the palatte. What I really like about (it) is that people can come in interact with something that's lively; they can interact with a bit more than just a painting on a wall. Sometimes that's really quiet."

Ms Stobo began painting in boarding school, continuing her studies at the Bermuda College and the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston.

"I came back here and since then I've worked on my own, doing my art. I've exhibited at the Arts Centre at Dockyard and with the Bermuda Society of Arts. (Masterworks Foundation head) Tom Butterfield has been really great. (The gallery) provides a wonderful opportunity for all artists and it's my first time showing there so I'm really appreciative.

"I try to do a show a year because it forces you to commit to working. It's always been really nerve- wracking but the end result is, 'Hey I've done it,' and it leads me on to the next thing whatever that may be.

"Painting for me is about finding simplicity. I will complete a painting and like only one small area in the painting. I feel that one small area is what the painting is all about. It becomes about discovering that small area that then completes the whole area.

"This discovery invariably comes about in the last few moments with the work and enables me to know when the work is complete. That one small area would not exist without the other areas of the painting.

In so many ways, the process of creating a painting is a metaphor for living. I apply what I learn with the process of painting to the art of living and vice versa."

q Ms Stobo's exhibit opens at the Masterworks Gallery, located at 97 Front Street, this evening and runs for a week.

q For more information on the Artists Up Front . . . Street series, telephone Masterworks at 295-5580. The gallery is open from Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. through 4 p.m.