The Bermuda Society of Arts, Unjuried Summer Show, City Hall, Hamilton.

*** Dearie, dearie me. Just when I thought things were beginning to look up a little bit for the Society, along comes an exhibition that is so horrific, so appallingly grim, that it makes you wonder just how low art in Bermuda has plummeted.

Of course Bermudian art -- or art in Bermuda -- hasn't plummeted at all. It might not be at a particularly lofty peak compared to other cultures and societies but then, seeing as it never has been, it's nigh on impossible for it to take a nosedive.

Despite what some people may think, I do believe there are some extremely talented, innovative and visionary artists -- both indigenous and foreign -- working in Bermuda. The problem with this show is that they're just not here.

In the past few months the BSoA has put on some excellent exhibitions, primarily because juries -- for once in their lives, have had the guts to be selective, cutting out the all the dross and relying on a certain standard that only a handful of people have the ability to reach. Unfortunately with this show the society has reverted to its old ways. The walls are crammed with the dull, the silly, the pretentious and, mostly, the downright incompetent.

Surely its members can do better than this? You might argue that, by abandoning all standards completely, the BSoA, and therefore art in Bermuda in general, couldn't be healthier, more welcoming, more accepting, more open minded and therefore more creative. I offer a different perspective -- that the lowest of the low drags everybody else down with them.

Okay, so it's an unjuried show, which is fine. Unless...

There's nothing wrong with a blind man with no hands and no training wanting to paint. There's nothing wrong with that person trying to express what he feels or senses on canvas -- even if he senses nothing in particular in the first place and can't even feel the end of his own nose. There's nothing wrong with that wannabe being given the opportunity to hang that canvas in a public art show -- tremendous say I.

But what I find so insulting is when our blind, crippled, insensitive, unfeeling, untalented Joe Blow, having cobbled together his first `work', is then told that he is now an `artist' and is warmly welcomed into the fold.

And here's the clincher. Not only does No-Hands Joe willingly accept the sorry little lie that he is now a member of the club, he expects the rest of us to swallow it hook, line and sinker too. It's the ultimate King's New Clothes syndrome.

There's a stack of examples to chose from, including a selection of gaudy designs by Laura Elgey. At least Laura has the ability to hold a paintbrush but that's as far as it goes. And $2,395 is an awful lot to ask for performing that not unexceptional task.

I think Joyce Beale's batik's are wonderfully original and atmospheric and there are a few on display here. But the woman has never mastered the basics of simple drawing and cannot paint and shouldn't be charging us $1,000 for the privilege of proving it to us.

The same applies to David Beale (any relation?). Asking $1,000 for `The Hat' is like having your six-year-old nephew ask you for $1,000 pocket money -- you just have laugh it off.

Elyse Nierenberg can occasionally produce some fairly pleasing landscapes, although how much of it is by luck I'm not too sure. Sadly she also has a habit of painting these Edwardian scenes of doll-like figures sitting around trying to look pretty -- only to end up looking deformed -- and then charging the earth for them.

Nancy Hutchings Valentine recently had her own one-woman show at Masterworks.

I felt that was unjustified and seeing a handful of her paintings here hasn't changed my mind.

Even society President Bruce Stuart disappoints. Why Bruce have you submitted two works that have been knocking around at various exhibitions across the Island for at least 18 months? Although the vast majority of pieces here are appalling -- and over-priced -- there are one or two exceptions, notably Ivan Cann's wonderfully flowing cut-outs and some fine work by Nicholas Silk and Laura Mickiewicz.

Perhaps the likes of Sheelagh Head, Jonah Jones, Grahams' Foster and Marson, Carolyn Finch, -- and a stack of other brilliant artists who live and work here and who are all absent in this exhibition have taken a break in recent months and had nothing to contribute this time around. That's sad but it doesn't justify the society launching a bunch of second-raters into the spotlight and handing them first prize -- which our exhibitors seem only too willing to accept.

I walked around this show with a colleague who was just along for the ride.

"God, I could do that,'' he kept on shouting excitedly. Yes, perhaps you could. But would you really want to? REVIEW REV