*** A few weeks ago, during a review of a show being held at the Arts Centre at Dockyard, in which Diana Amos stole the show yet again, I questioned why she had never put on a solo exhibition herself.

Well, thankfully, the powers that be at the Windjammer Gallery obviously share my enthusiasm and have put on a display of more than 30 works by Amos that dazzle and delight.

If Sheilagh Head is the doyen of Bermuda's oil painters than surely the same honour should be bestowed on Amos for her acrylic work. The Island is lucky to possess two such accomplished painters.

Unlike many landscape artists Amos steers clear of the tacky and sentimental.

Her Bermuda is the back alley, the side street, the peeling paint on a rickety shutter, the coarse surface of a crumbling old wall in need of a paint job itself -- and she allows us to see the beauty of it all.

Bermuda of course should be a landscape painter's paradise (which probably explains why so many people living here take it up in the first place). Amos shows us why.

The light simply bounces off `Yellow House' -- one of the few large scale oils on display -- while the foreground vegetation is luscious and abundant and beautifully painted.

`Light Stream' is a moody sunset with dark clouds scudding across the bay, their swollen bellies contrasting with the golds and oranges of the sky. Such a scene, when tackled by Amos, is so much more heart-warming, impressive and sublime than any Roland Skinner snapshot.

Using multiple washes Amos creates canvass which are rich and textured, despite the simplicity of her scenes. It's a technique that works wonderfully well in such scenes as `Palmetto Shadows' and `Blue Shutter'.

But Amos doesn't just stick to architectural scenes (although this is clearly her strong point).

`The Grotto' is an almost abstract haze of craggy rock hanging over a pool of shimmering blue while `Cabbages' gets a similar treatment, the leaves of the vegetable being reduced to their simplest forms.

It doesn't always work. `Needle and Thread Alley' is perhaps too big and too simple a composition to hold the viewer's interest. Her watercolours, because of the very nature of the medium, sometimes lack the richness and depth of texture of her acrylics, and it would seem that she is not quite so much at home with the medium. This is particularly evident in pieces such as `The Reef', `Gateway to the Harbour', and `St. Peters', the last of which seems to have been almost timidly painted, the tight detail of the subject not suitable for her normally relaxed, easy style. Then again, `Silk Alley' is a wonderfully tranquil scene well executed.

Similarly two small-scale oil studies of the sea seem less accomplished.

Clearly Amos is more comfortable on dry land.

But this really is nit-picking and it's good to see an artist working in a number of different styles and mediums using a broad range of influences.

A few weeks ago, reviewing the `Growing' exhibition which featured the work of just six pretty useful painters, I commented on the fact that the art scene in Bermuda would be so much more richer, so much more inspiring and so much more impressive, if exhibitions were more selective. No -- art shouldn't be elitist and yes painting should be primarily fun and enjoyable. But putting on shows featuring every Tom, Dick and Harry capable of holding a pencil only serves to distract from the few excellent painters we have and makes going to a gallery a pretty unpleasant, although sometimes quite humorous experience. It's not going to make a show a top draw, something that everyone would want to see.

The `Growing' exhibition made the point. Amos's work positively rams it home -- wonderful stuff and a must see. The sooner we have more exhibitions like this, the more vibrant Bermuda's art scene will be.

Impressive view: One of the many acrylic paintings by Diana Amos currently on display at the Windjammer Gallery.

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