Story and photos by Jimmy Steinfeldt
Melissa Morgan Fine Art Gallery, Palm Desert (The Hollywood Times) 5/8/2025 – The next generation of artists are right here in the Coachella Valley!
I attended an amazing exhibit of young artists at the famed Melissa Morgan Fine Art gallery Thursday evening. Many of the artists, their instructors, art lovers and collectors attended and marveled at the creativity of the many paintings, drawings, sculptures, video and photography.
As a photographer I was especially impressed by a number of color photographs, my favorite being the vintage gas station through a tire.
I had the opportunity to interview one of the artists Cianna Hogan who with her classmate Marco Ojeda created a wonderful sculpture which comments on the geography and climate of our beautiful desert community. Note the concrete blocks that step up mimicking the mountains that surround the Coachella Valley. And of course cactus abound in our dry desert climate.
Jimmy Steinfeldt (JS): Tell me about your amazing art piece.
Cianna Hogan (CH): The Native Garden. I made it with my classmate for Desert X. It’s inspired by the native plants of the Coachella Valley. We wanted it to be pyramid like to represent the mountains. Many happy accidents occurred while making it that made it turn out better than our original plan. Our teachers helped us a lot.
JS: You showed me a photo of the larger piece you created.
CH: Yes, the original is 2-3 times larger and was built at the desert location. Location is very important to the whole project of Desert X. The smaller version here at Melissa Morgan Fine Art is representative. Also in the original contains two halves that are separated by a tree. That is in part to represent division we currently find in society.
This opening celebration was enhanced with food, beverages and my favorite–the yummy multi-colored cupcakes.
The exhibit runs through May 21 and is well worth seeing.
For more information on the Exhibit: https://melissamorganfineart.com/
For more information on Desert X: https://desertx.org/
