One Family's Art at the Bermuda Society of Arts'Onions Gallery.Dazzling<$> isn't a word that I would normally consider using to describe an art show. The collection of work by members of the Emmerson family, however, that opened last Friday at the Bermuda Society of Arts' Onions Gallery couldn't be described as anything else. To start with it is the largest show ever to have been mounted in that gallery. To go on with, the only work in the entire show of less than good quality is a watercolour by distinguished photographer Mark Emmerson, dating from 1953 when he was probably still a teenager. It is described as being "the only known work to have survived from Mark's early period". This gentle sense of humour informs much of this fascinating show.

Mark himself, paterfamilias of the collection, is widely known for his beautiful platinum print photography. The exacting and slow process is described in an excellent illustrated catalogue in sufficient detail to enhance the casual viewer's enjoyment of the subtleties and depths that turns the platinum print into a refined art form.

What really dazzled the crowd at the opening reception and fascinated me beyond all the rest of the show, however, were his digital restorations of old photographic plates, negatives and positives of Bermuda from as far back as the early 1880s damaged by the passage of time and poor storage conditions. They were not your run of the mill photographs that have been around in books and histories and are thus quite familiar to anyone with an interest in Bermuda's past.

The only one I had seen before was a photograph of my great grandfather surrounded by his family and that only because I had had occasion to get it restored for a family gathering several years ago. Mr. Emmerson asked for the original to demonstrate his restoration technique at the show.

The others were scenes of sailing in traditional Bermuda sailboats with raked masts and extensive sails. Modern yachts may be faster, but they are not nearly as beautiful. These were undated and ascribed to the 1900s. By using known or assumed dates of house construction one of them dated itself as being from the late 1920s. Scenes in the City of Hamilton attracted much of the attention and comparisons of buildings and dates kept older viewers in particular fascinated.

Mark, in his catalogue preamble on the subject of beauty, says, "It is more difficult to create beauty than it is to create 'ugly'." Given this entirely correct sentiment it baffles me that he can waste his undoubted talent in creating beauty by photographing some of Bermuda's ugliest architecture. One photograph that he has shown before makes interesting use of one of those fake Flemish gables that so disfigure the Ace building. Another, of glassy reflections in Hamilton Harbour has its composition completely overbalanced and its beauty destroyed by including not once but twice, given its reflection, the Island's most obtrusive piece of 'ugly', the Bank of Bermuda's head office.

Almost half the gallery was filled with the oil paintings of Rhona Emmerson, the materfamilias. Rhona has a vigorous, direct style of painting that is nothing if not colourful. After a good deal of consideration, finding the landscapes as a whole rather overwhelming, I came to the conclusion that her use of strong rusts and oranges was what I found a somewhat overpowering.

The sheer number of her paintings added somewhat to the overwhelming sense as well. I thus found myself more drawn to simpler, shadier works such as Blue Shadows and the amusingly titled Through the Trees <$>where the light is less violent and the effect cooler. Five Vermont scenes, too, were refreshingly cooler and reinforce my thought that it is very good for Bermudian artists to get away from the island and paint in other lights elsewhere.

An abrupt change of style made me think I had arrived at the work of another Emmerson. I hadn't. Rhona has several other style tricks up her sleeve. One, a flatter, smoother treatment of surfaces with a more academic approach to the geometric play of light and shade she applies largely to St. George's. The result produces some of the more interesting effects derived from that self consciously venerable subject.

There follows a set of stylised still life flower paintings, one with more than a nod to Van Gogh's Sunflowers<$>. Rather formal and, for the most part, symmetrical, these are painted with the same vigour, but with a smoother and more patterned treatment than her landscapes.

Just to keep us all jumping, her virtuosity included several pastel life studies. These were more involved with the play of unusual light on her models than anything else and may show the influence of the family photographers more than she might like to admit. They also reinforce my strong view that if you are going to draw or paint the human figure it is absolutely essential to have a thorough knowledge of anatomy.

Versatility, obviously, can be inherited too. Hannah Emmerson for the most part works n ways that are small and intricate. She paints eggs, usually with exquisite delicacy and detail. These are most effective with animal subjects, a rather benign but haughty Polar Bear and an intense Tiger commanding the collection.

With a background in metal smithing becoming a designer of jewellery follows naturally. Hannah's jewellery is, for the most part, practical, charming, individual and on occasion even humorous. In the latter category are cufflinks designed as miniature spirit levels. Outside the practical were what she describes as Love Book rings with curling wings of metal certain to catch on every available piece of nearby fabric.

Just to prove she can come up with as many contrasting styles as any of her family there are two works done by covering herself and a friend with paint and lying on paper to produce what I suppose might be called monoprints vivants. These are overpainted in a mildly Jackson Pollockish style. The result is effervescent, fun and highly decorative and as exuberant as is her mother's painting.

All the Emmerson men's first names are Joshua for reasons not explained. Only Joshua Mark Eric Campbell Emmerson (they also go in for numerous Christian names and must suffer dreadfully in this age of computer-enforced uniformity) is actually called Joshua. Still barely 20 years old, he, too, is studying metal smithing. He is represented in the show principally by a wrought iron chair of serious mien and doubtful comfort. Additional pieces of wrought iron decorated wooden chests. On a central island of family togetherness was a beautifully executed Mask<$> done in charcoal and taken from a stone mask of unattributed origin. There was also a charcoal nude of dubious anatomy that suggested a family exercise when a model became available.

What most impressed me, however, are his photographs taken when he sailed around the world a couple of years ago as a crewmember on the tall ship Concordia. His mother suggested rather dismissively, I thought, that they were just snapshots and, indeed that is what they may have been. They were, however, snapshots taken with the eye of an artist. I remember recently admiring Scott Stallard's photographs of the Namibian desert, stark, arid and empty. Joshua's snapshots taken in the Namibian desert include people, presumably his crewmates. In several of the pictures they are minute in the distance and lend a scale and vastness to the desert that the Stallard photographs didn't convey. This artist's eye is evident in most of his other photographs.

A few of these digital photographs are mounted. A great many more are to be seen on a video monitor changing at a rate of one every five seconds. I was sorry I hadn't time to see them around a second or third time, or to be able to slow the change rate. Most of the pictures deserve more careful study than can be given in five seconds.

There is another, younger brother "on walkabout down under". When these youngsters hit their adult stride the Island is clearly going to be in for a treat. Even with the young Emmersons still at the apprentice stage, this is an exhibition that sparkles and is certainly not to be missed.