Dee Ann Segula’s “Retrospective” at the WSG Gallery gives us the full range of this local artist’s career. Among the media on display are clothing; purses; jewelry; oil paintings in a variety of mixed-media; bird houses; puppetry; art boxes; as well as pen, ink, and gouache.

This restless exploration might initially seem to defy definition—but the constant in Segula’s art has been the lifelong evocation of her muse. In one way or another, the notion of the muse figures in Segula’s art.

This singular impulse—whether directly addressed or imaginatively implied—remains. There’s a fantastic element in her work that grounds her creativity.

For example, Segula’s oil on canvas “The Game” finds her at her most imaginative—and her most mysterious. This remarkable painting of 8 harlequins riding on zebras across a checkerboard field evokes a vivid hyper-reality. These characters' wildness, coupled with her harlequins' colorful garb, gives “The Game” an otherworldly tension in which all the players seemingly relish the stakes involved.

Segula’s encaustic on wood “Zebra” painting takes the idea of creative willfulness and subtly expands on its meaning. This animal has never been tamed and is noted for its swiftness—as well as its camouflage. Segula paints the animal at full gait, giving it magnificence commensurate with its beauty. Its only constraint is a plaque running horizontally across its mid-section.

The most handsome artwork in this display (reflecting her love of couture) is Segula’s encaustic on wood “Kimono.” This trompe l’oeil oriental-tinged painting uses Segula’s favored earth-tone palette as a base with a graded chromatic transition running diagonally across the vest coupled to a spray of green leaves tossed across the garment’s lower third. There’s a studied eye for detail in this painting that shows Segula’s handiwork at best form.

There’s no question that the signal artwork of the exhibit features Segula’s fascination with creativity as represented in enigmatic figurative form.

Her “The Muse” vaguely emulates Byzantine art—if this style of art were to be funneled through a surrealist sensibility. The two richly robed female figures in this oil on board masterwork are shaped in this early era’s flattened form. Yet the work’s checkerboard ground (as also found in “The Game”) is crafted with just enough curvature to give the work a keen pictorial recession. Add a levitating grove of trees in the work’s background and its surreality is complete. As with all figurative art, the two models that dominate the work. The receptive artist is cocked at a slight angle as her muse whispers in her ear, holding a mirror for introspection. This acknowledgement of the inner and outer spirit of art illustrates volumes of Segula’s point of view. Her “muse” has been a career-long effort to carefully watch and listen for inspiration in equal measures.

“Dee Ann Segula: Retrospective” will continue through July 31 at WSG Gallery, 306 S. Main St. Gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m., Tuesday-Wednesday; noon to 10 p.m., Thursday-Saturday; and noon to 5 p.m., Sunday. For information, call 734-761-2287.