Showtime

What: Saints, Sinners and Sundries

Where: Gallery on the Bay, 231 Bay St. N.

When: until Dec. 7

Phone: 905-540-8532

What do beautiful saints, wicked sinners and glamorous actresses have in common? They are essential players in Maureen Steuart's art.

Almost 100 paintings, prints, books, matryoshka dolls and icons by the Dundas artist are showcased in Saints, Sinners and Sundries, a joyful exhibition at Gallery on the Bay.

Steuart, who has been exhibiting for nearly 30 years, has a creative spirit that never seems to desert her.

She is a lover of line. In fact, she owns it. In her florals, for instance, continuous thin dark lines contain each flower, while clusters of short lines contribute a three-dimensional effect.

Steuart is also a keen observer and recorder of the slightest details, however fanciful they may be.

That includes a dragon that appears in one of her icons. Icons, or images of holy figures, have been around for nearly 2,000 years. Steuart's saints, like their ancient prototypes, dominate the composition and are accompanied by an attribute -- something that helps to identify them.

Margaret of Antioch, for example, wouldn't stand out in a crowd if she left her dragon at home.

The third-century Christian martyr was said to be so beautiful the pagan ruler of Antioch wanted to marry her. She refused. So he had her fed to a dragon.

But she held a cross in her hand and, as soon as the dragon ate her, the cross caused it to burst open. Margaret popped out unharmed. For this feat, she became a patron goddess of childbirth.

The dragon, tongue twitching, lies at Margaret's feet in Steuart's icon. Alternating orange and raised red stripes cover its sinuous body. Its five-sectioned wings sparkle like silver.

Margaret, blond and rosy-cheeked, is framed by a hilly landscape, her hands folded in prayer. Gold and glitter paint enrich the surface and add a traditional feel.

Saints adorn Steuart's matryoshka dolls, but so do other celebrities. Matryoshkas, popular in traditional Russian art, consist of about half a dozen hollow dolls of different sizes made to nest into one another.

Most traditional dolls are painted as women dressed in folk costumes. But Steuart devotes one set to St. Francis of Assisi, another to Bette Davis.

And another group portrays Henry VIII and his six wives. Henry, the biggest, contains all his wives, a most appropriate image for the larger-than-life king.

The first wife, Catherine of Aragon, is the largest of the wives, and Catherine Parr, his last wife, the one who outlived him, is the smallest. Steuart paints all of them with gorgeous clothes, picking out jewels, buttons and fabric folds.

Henry, bearded and full-lipped, seems almost weighed down by his symbols of office.

Also weighed down is Mrs. Sprat. She figures in a series of witty woodcuts in which Steuart grafts the Seven Deadly Sins onto nursery rhymes. Gluttony is exemplified by Mrs. Sprat with her cat, while Envy is Goldilocks' sin.

But it's no sin, I'm sure, to covet the works in this exhibition.

Regina Haggo is giving a lecture on how early artists depicted the Christmas Story on Friday, Dec. 12. The class runs from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the Dundas Valley School of Art. To register, phone 905-628-6357.

dhaggo@thespec.com