Patterns, formations melded in exhibit
A master of intricate rock formations adds the “wild card” elements of fabric patterns and less finished areas to them in a new show.
The artist is Carol Beesley, whose “Blue Clouds and Below” mixed media paintings, are at JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N Walker.
Rich red rock formations are sandwiched between less finished areas, and seem to drip down, in Beesley’s “The Painted Desert,” for example.
Adding more interest is a band of yellow-orange sunburst like fabric patterns in the sky over Beesley’s version of “The Painted Desert.”
Pink fabric roses pile up under a multi-hued “Mystery Wall” of red, turquoise and other rock layers, in an intriguing 48-inch square work by Beesley.
Deeper red rose fabric flower patterns are wedged between red rock formations, as if to explain “The True Origins of the Rose Rock,” in her work of that title.
Also combining fabric patterns and less finished areas, artfully, is her depiction of a “Backroad, Near Turner Falls,” and her aerial view of the “Rio Grand Gorge, near Taos.”
More surreal feeling, and needing no embellishment, is an oil of a “Cloud Chair With Tulips,” by Beesley, a retired University of Oklahoma art professor emeritus.
In this painting, Beesley portrays a dark blue vase of flowers on a chair, covered up with a sheet, nearly as blue as the sky behind it.
In a second JRB show, Dallas artist Bob Nunn offers us “Another Look” at a fanciful botanical series, and oils of overhead semi-urban landscapes and fractal horizons.
Weird bluish-green stalks or towers, alternate with exotic flowers, and strange leaves, in Nunn’s “Fantasia III and IV.”
Aerial views of a serpentine river and suburban street plans are superimposed over a stylized mountain range and clouds in Nunn’s “North Northwest” diptych.
Similar visual devices are pushed even further in Nunn’s “On The Horizon I, II, and III,” in which subtle, shifting color bands break up the composition.
Director of Capitol Collections for the Oklahoma Arts Council, Alan Atkinson offers us a show of “Art Historical Essays on Canvas ... From the Chinese.”
Exquisite yet austere are his acrylics of small birds and a “Wood Duck Family” on the water, while stylized rolling waves enliven two acrylics of Chinese rivers.
Executed with even more flourish by Atkinson is his acrylic in black on green of the monumental Chinese calligraphic character for “Dragon.”
The three shows are highly recommended in their run through Sept. 30.