The paintings of Brian Snyder and the wooden sculptures of Walter Bailey could not be more different but the contrast is successful.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Snyder describes his works as "American Aboriginal". Ten years ago, he saw an exhibition of Australian Aboriginal art and was instantly fascinated.

"I just thought 'wow'. I'd never seen anything like it."

He experimented using cotton buds and acrylic paint that resulted in a dot technique.

In Paris later, another artist introduced him to brushes made of human hair.

There is no specific symbolism that pertains to the aboriginal art that hooked Snyder. Instead, listening to modern jazz by Bob James, Euge Groove, Bonnie James and Courtney Pine is what shapes these pictures.

"One CD will get me through a painting and I'll be inspired by that. That's why I describe them as 'frozen melodies'."

His sinuous, undulating lines of dots are absorbing and easy on the eye. Refreshingly breaking with gallery traditions, Snyder feels he has succeeded as an artist when viewers want to touch his pictures.

"If someone wants to touch my paintings, I feel like I've accomplished my goal," he says. "It means they feel that connection."

Walter Bailey's past commissions include A Flame For Dunblane - a carved flame coming out of a yew tree in the National Forest at Swadlincote, in memory of the 1996 school killings and a millennium sculpture for Worthing hospital.

It is not hard to see why his artwork is in such demand.

Bailey was originally a painter but, while working in forestry to support himself, he met sculptor David Nash and began a three-year apprenticeship.

He carves into wood with a chainsaw to create lattice forms that allow for a play of light. His carvings appear to be alive for they cry out with such soul.

The sculptures in this exhibition were carved in a Sussex wood.

Bailey says: "The woodland is my studio. Wood is a living dynamic material; the wood breathes, cracks open and closes in response to temperature and humidity.

"These sculptures were carved and then burned to increase surface texture and depth."

The shapes and figures that emerge from the wood bear a mythical kind of presence, one of lasting fortitude and grace.

All works, on show at Christopher Gill in Ship Street, are for sale.