The Hi-Desert Cultural Center’s new Yucca Valley Visual & Performing Arts Center will present its second large arts exhibition entitled DESERT ICONS, opening with a special gala and public reception Saturday evening, August 25th from 6-9 pm. Following the unprecedented success of the new arts center’s inaugural exhibition, GROUND TO SKY, which focused on assemblage and astrophotography, this new exhibition centers around how artists reflect upon their experience in the desert—their observation of its beauty and influence. The collective works from thirty-six esteemed and renown Hi-Desert artists span many mediums and a broad spectrum from direct representation to abstraction and in-between.
Executive curator Michael McCall challenged artists in the greater Joshua Tree area to present images that reflect the desert and their experience of living and producing in the Hi-Desert. With that in mind, pieces were chosen that purposefully steered away from the normal clichés and that are produced to reflect the desert to the general viewing public. The new exhibition pushes the edges at times and forces one to think about what one may consider an “icon”.
is “hands on” designing the Center’s second large arts
exhibition, DESERT ICONS, opening August 25 at 6pm.
The new DESERT ICONS exhibition features paintings by artists Snake Jagger, Diane Best, Ernie Gonzales, David Bottoms, Chuck Caplinger, Bill Copeland, Maryrose Crook, Geroganne Deen, Amritakripa Watts-Robb, Paul Donaldson, Gregg Ross, Jeff Lipschutz, and Marcia Geiger; photography by Dan Barlett, Timothy Hearsum, Jeanne Talbot, Bill Leigh Brewer, Sant Khalsa, Brian Leatart, Doug Dolde, Paul Morehead; and multi-media works by Rossana Jeran, Bill Green, John Henson, Kate McCabe, Tony Milici, Thryza Segal, Frederick Fulmer, Sherri Sullivan, Jean-Pierre Boccara, Steffi Sutton, Barbara Spiller, Jacobine van de Meer, Cat Celebrezze, Kevan Yenter and Wendy Gadzuk.
The Yucca Valley Visual & Performing Arts Center is located at 58325 Highway 62 in Yucca Valley, California, 92284. More information on the new exhibition and the brand new visual and performing arts center may be found online at YVArts.org. The Yucca Valley Visual & Performing Arts Center is a program and annex of Hi-Desert Cultural Center, a GuideStar “Gold Status” non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that serves as the regional visual and performing arts organization and arts agency for the communities of Joshua Tree National Park.
