Inspiration for four new shows came from many places— more time for work after retirement, pandemic garden blooms, facial closeups and musical notes.

The shows of John Wolfe, Katherine Kerr Allen, Moriah Gonzales and Karen Mosbacher, run through April 30 at JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N Walker.

Extensively exhibited regionally, Wolfe combines rectangles with circular, oval and egg shapes, as well as pale pastel colors, in his mostly abstract acrylic paintings. In one Wolfe painting, for example, an elongated rectangle, topped with two pink, blank circles, vaguely suggests a double clock tower, with no hands to tell time.

Wonderfully whimsical are Wolfe's geometric mixed media sculptures, some of which have tiny ceramic heads, atop rectangular metal bodies standing on thin metal legs. Other Wolfe figurative sculptural inventions include a dead insect-face in the metal chest cavity where the heart should be — a work called "Persistance."

Wolfe, an Oklahoma City artist, was a 35-year high school and college art teacher before his retirement in 2005.

Allen was born in Brainerd, Minnesota, and raised in Oklahoma. Using white background space very effectively, Allen gives calligraphic intensity to her "In Bloom" series acrylics of flowers and winged insects on synthetic Japanese paper. Having the impact of two very large hanging banners are Allen's acrylic on silk and thread depictions of leafy vegetal shapes.

Capturing our attention, too, are the four, 48-inch-square closeup female facial oil canvases by Gonzales, a realistic artist from Fort Worth who lives in Norman. Gestures play a key role in three Gonzales self-portraits, whether she is pursing her lips and winking, sticking out her tongue, or contemplatively touching her chin or face.

In the fourth oil from Gonzales's "I Live In My Own Mind" series, a female friend seems to be shouting, holding her cheeks with both hands. Black, reddish-brown and orange-yellowish-violet scribbles or brush marks interact well in the mixed media works on white canvas of Mosbacher.

A University of Oklahoma art graduate living in Colorado Springs, Mosbacher cites composers as sources of her abstract, synesthetic "Rhythm and Improv" paintings.

All four shows are highly recommended in the rest of their run at JRB.  Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, with masks and social distancing encouraged. Call 405-528-6336, or visit http://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/BIjDCBBXwLtPE0KAQIzKUo_?domain=jrbartgallery.com for information.