About the Jones Art Gallery
Gallery Hours
Monday: 9:00am – 3:00pm
Tuesday: 8:00am – 11:00am; 4:00pm – 6:30pm
Wednesday: 8:00am – 3:00pm
Thursday: 8:00am – 11:00am; 4:00pm – 6:30pm*
Friday: Closed
*Gallery hours will vary on Thursdays when there is an opening reception for an exhibition.
Gallery Curator
D. Marshall Sharpe
Email: jonesgallery@gmail.com
Phone: (661) 395-4552
Marshall Sharpe, born in 1988, is from Greensboro, NC. He received his BA in Studio Art from Elon University in 2010 and his MFA in Painting from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2020. Sharpe teaches painting and drawing courses at Bakersfield College in Southern California as an Associate Professor. His creative work focuses on ancestry, identity, and transience.
He has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions at the New York City Phoenix Art Collective, UCSB’s Glassbox Gallery, and the Czong Institute of Contemporary Art in Gyeonggi-do, Korea. The work has also been included in invitational and juried exhibitions at the Art Design and Architecture Museum, CA, The Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, the Woodbury Museum in Orem, Utah, California State University Long Beach, California State Channel Islands, Elon University, and the Honolulu Museum of Art School. His work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Hawaii Public Radio, Lum Art Magazine, and the Santa Barbara Independent.
History of the Jones Gallery
The Wylie and May Louise Jones Gallery at Bakersfield College stands as a testament to the institution’s commitment to the arts and its rich history. Situated within the Grace Van Dyke Bird Library, the gallery has become a cultural hub for both the campus and the broader Bakersfield community.
When the Grace Van Dyke Bird Library was relocated from its original 1956 building to its current building in 1997, the art gallery was dedicated to May Louise Fulton Jones and Wylie Logan Jones whose generous estate bequest made the gallery possible. Wylie Jones had been an economics and business professor and department chair at BC for forty years. He and May Louise were prominent supporters of the arts and humanities education in the Bakersfield community and BC.
The gallery’s mission is to showcase a diverse range of visual art produced by contemporary artists, including annual exhibitions featuring the work of Bakersfield College art students, Kern County high school students, and biennial shows highlighting the college’s fine arts faculty. It also does occasional exhibitions of BC’s extensive permanent art collection, begun in 1960 with initial purchases by the associated students and subsequent acquisitions from grants and donations. The collection of more than 90 pieces includes works by Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Charles White, Phil Hocking, Walter Mix, Phil Paradise, Clayton Rippey and other artists.
Over the years, the Jones Gallery has hosted numerous special exhibitions, enriching the cultural fabric of the college and the surrounding community. Notable showcases include solo exhibitions by artists such as Yumiko Glover, Austin McCormack and Autumn Nicole Smith in 2024, which explored themes ranging from labor and environmental impact to memory and identity.
Through its thoughtfully curated exhibitions and dedication to artistic diversity, the Wylie and May Louise Jones Gallery serves as a beacon of cultural enrichment at Bakersfield College.
