This acrylic on panel painting by John Wolfe features a turn-of-the-century stark white country church in Tecumseh, Oklahoma against a vivid blue cloudless sky. The geometric shapes of the architecture are heightened with the contrasting shadows cast by the sun on a summer day. The angular shapes of the church steps and portico are repeated in the church tower and roofline. The viewer is faced directly with the front view of the church, the accompanying shadows, and cobalt blue sky evoking memories of bygone days.

John Wolfe was born in Vernon, Texas, in 1947. He attended public school in Davidson, Oklahoma, and graduated from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in 1970 with a degree in Art Education. He completed his M.Ed. at the University of Central Oklahoma in 1976. John taught art in the Midwest City-Del City School System for 35 years and was an adjunct art faculty at Rose State College 1978-1981, and Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado 2004-2014. John’s work has been exhibited extensively across Oklahoma and the surrounding region at venues including the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, the Oklahoma State Capitol, the Hot Springs National Park Sculpture Invitational and the National Weather Center Biennale. Since his retirement from teaching in 2005 to the present he is a full time studio artist. John divides his time in the studio between painting and sculpture. The most recent series of acrylic paintings were architectural in nature and currently the focus is a new group of figurative mixed-media sculptures.