LIVING WITH ART BLOG

JRB Art at The Elms

Presents

“The Land: New Work/Old Places” with Carol Beesley

“Through the Shadow” with John Wolfe

And “My View” with Bob Nunn

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma – JRB Art at The Elms will present three solo exhibitions in October featuring southwest artist, Carol Beesley, mixed media artist, John Wolfe and colorist, Bob Nunn. The exhibitions open with an evening reception at 6:00pm on Friday, October 7th, during the Paseo’s First Friday Gallery Walk and continue through Sunday, October 30th.

Carol Beesley is a focused observer of landscapes and an admirer of vintage postcards, both from which she draws inspiration for her paintings. “I work intuitively inspired by the land and places I visit and photograph. I also work from the collected images of my archive of antique 40’s and 50’s “Wish You Were Here” postcards.” Beesley recently discarded her purist long time attitude about working-only-in-oil when she sought refuge from the Oklahoma heat in her air-conditioned home, completing 25 8” x 8” paintings using layers of acrylic, watercolor and oil paints. In this new body of work, she built stylized forms, with drawings on the surface and sometimes added a “borrowed” or fantasy sky to the painting.

Painter, sculptor, assemblage artist and educator, John Wolfe started creating a series of paper constructions and ceramic sculptures when he thought his painting Muse disappeared. Digging through old sketchbooks and reams of drawings and doodles he found that he liked what he was seeing and took off in a new direction. During this pursuit he also decided to abandon his old friend, color. “I wanted to deal with minimal variations of neutral.” Each paper construction piece is based on a fragment of a drawing, transferred to paper then cut out and applied to more

paper. His sculpture plant forms are based on shapes that appeared in the paper constructions. “At this point in time, I’m excited to see what develops next.” Wolfe states, “My Muse has returned.”

Bob Nunn has lived, worked and taught more than four decades in Dallas. Nunn brings to JRB Art two series of work which he has characterized as “botanicals” and “aerial landscapes”, with a caution that neither label can be taken literally. Though the imagery in these two series is quite different, Nunn has tried to incorporate in both a sometimes playful juxtaposition of what might be real or imagined, encouraging the viewer “to suspend belief and wonder along with me.”