High Desert Icons

High Desert Icons: Paintings by Paul Donaldson and Snake Jagger and featuring assemblage by Joey Bebar
On View: May 6 - May 31 
Gallery Hours: Fridays 11 am - 3 pm, Saturdays 9 am - 3 pm and Sundays Noon - 3 pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 6, 6pm-9pm
Second Saturday Gallery Walk: Saturday, April 8 5:30 - 8:30 pm

JTAG presents a collection of work from three artists: Paul Donaldson, Snake Jagger and Joey Bebar. Inspired by the rich tapestry of friends and characters that make up this profoundly beautiful and undeniably unique high desert community, Paul and Snake will be showing portraits of locals who have contributed to cultivating this artistic community. Showing alongside Paul and Snake is assemblage artist, Joey Bebar. By incorporating historical mining themes and early building techniques, Bebar's unique creations capture the ruggedness of the desert landscape. 

About Paul Donaldson
Paul Donaldson’s paintings and drawings span a period of four decades and represent street scenes of Mexico and Guatemala. His many visits south of the border resulted in observations captured in photographs and sketches portrayed on canvas. He shows us the vibrant colors, textures, light and environment of commons street scenes and the everyday activities of his subjects.

He received his MFA (1976) From California State University Long Beach. He retired from teaching Art at Golden West College and has devoted his time to painting ever since.


About Snake Jagger
Snake Jagger refers to his artistic style as Whimsical Surrealism.

He is an artist who, while dedicated to the subtle exposition of his personal philosophy, doesn't take himself too seriously and is comfortable working with his tongue planted firmly in cheek. Jagger's work seems to draw a significant part of it's compositional inspiration from Rene Magritte. Jagger, like Magritte, is able to juxtapose the most mundane of objects in a manner that convinces us to accept the entire image, regardless of it's disparities, as a wholly realistic depiction. In Magritte's paintings, we are not taken aback by the locomotives roaring out of fireplaces or by swarms of levitating British businessmen soaring above the rooftops. And so it is with Jagger's work; once the mind's eye has recorded the presence and positioning of these incongruous objects, it then becomes almost impossible to imagine the painting existing without them