Snake Jagger, Palm Springs
Member Since March 2009
Artist Statement 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 is clearly surrealist in demeanor, but there is no hint of the Daliesque allegory here. Rather, Jagger's work seems to draw a significant part of its 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 its disparities, as a wholly realistic depiction. In Magritte's paintings, we are not taken aback by 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. Jagger's striking visual imagery often takes viewers on a down-the-rabbit-hole journey into what could almost be considered a parallel universe. Within this hyper-real world, massive vine-ripened tomatoes lounge on sunny Mediterranean patios, huge Saguaro cacti double as street lamps, dripping water faucets thrust up out of velveteen desert sand dunes, and doors in the canvas literally open into other realities. So skillfully wrought are the images, and so carefully integrated into the composition, that we are hard put to think of these visual elements in any sense other than as normal, expected components of the landscape. The artist also employs a broad lexicon of symbols in his paintings. This complex iconography has been an important part of his work for over 20 years and is present to some extent in virtually everything he creates. But before viewers can explore the artist's copious use of symbolism they must first understand the seminal importance of the highly ordered, manicured landscapes and architectural components that are at the visual center point of Jagger's singular view of the world. His goal is to reshape and reinvent the world, and he is inviting us all along with him on a journey that promises both discovery and fulfillment.The message embedded at the core of each of his paintings is this: We only have one world and we cannot allow ourselves to squander its resources. Working together, we will perfect this worlds beauty and potential. We will leave it a better place for all generations yet to come. Ultimately, we must each make a choice, to either be part of the problem or part of the solution.
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