Two shows running concurrently at the Suffolk Art Gallery beginning today invite art lovers to touch the art — yes, really! — in one case and to view 20 years of a sometimes serious, sometimes whimsical art career in the other case.

“Corinne Lilyard-Mitchell: A 20 Year Retrospective” and “Please Touch the Art” will open with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. today. It is free and open to the public.

Lilyard-Mitchell earned the honor of the one-woman show by virtue of her first-place award in the Suffolk Art League’s 2014 Annual Juried Exhibition.

Including work completed since 1995, Lilyard-Mitchell’s show offers a variety of media, techniques and subject matter. Inspired by historical art as well as modern whimsy, the artist said she has always been interested in the arts.

“I’ve always taken art classes,” said Lilyard-Mitchell, now an art instructor at Tidewater Community College.

Her early work was strictly oil on canvas. Other media in which she has worked include encaustic and graphite. But later work has branched out to mixed media, including portraits painted on top of pages from books and maps.

“The more you look at it, the more complete it becomes,” said Linda Bunch, executive director of the Suffolk Art League. “Every time I come back, I suddenly realize I missed something.”

The variety of subject matter spans from portraits to cameos by such personalities as Mr. Potato Head and Mickey Mouse.

“I’ve always been interested in history, so I like to reference historical subjects,” she said. “Beads and toys and things kind of show up in multiple pieces in different ways.”

Lilyard-Mitchell said she hopes the show comes together.

“I’m hoping it displays the evolution as well as the continuation,” she said. “I hope the show works well together, even though it’s an incredible variety of things.”

Lilyard-Mitchell will be on site at tonight’s reception.

On the opposite side of the art gallery will be the work of Hillsborough artist Sally Barker. She is the creator of the Barker Code, a system of color and texture pairings in fabric that enable the blind and visually impaired to enjoy works of art.

Visitors receive a color wheel with Braille labels that enable them to interpret the paintings. Red colors, for example, are silky, while oranges use a rough material and black is velvet.

Barker has recreated many famous paintings using the code, including Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.”

“She’s had wonderful reactions to her work,” Bunch said of Barker. One blind man said of a recreation of a Picasso painting: “Why was he so angry?”

Texture as well as color are represented in Barker’s work. One recreation of a pointillist work — an artistic style that consists of tiny dots of color rather than brushstrokes — features beads behind the fabric to represent the dots.

The better-known works are interspersed with lesser-known artists and a wide variety of styles, from Japanese painting to impressionist to pop art.

“She’s really picked a lot of different styles, and chronologically a wide range,” Bunch said.

Bunch noted that all art enthusiasts, not just ones who are blind, will be able to appreciate Barker’s work. Quilters, especially, will enjoy the work, Bunch said.

Barker will give a talk on her work on Aug. 20 from 6 to 8 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

The Suffolk Art Gallery is located at 118 Bosley Ave. It is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call the art league at 925-0448 or the art gallery at 514-7284.