Gullah Spirit: The Art of Jonathan Green

By Jonathan Green and Angela D. Mack

A celebration of the life and culture of the Gullah people of the South Carolina Lowcountry in 179 new paintings

Jonathan Green is best known for his vibrant depictions of the Gullah life and culture established by descendants of enslaved Africans who settled between northern Florida and North Carolina during the nineteenth century. For decades, Green's vividly colored paintings and prints have captured and preserved the daily rituals and Gullah traditions of his childhood in the Lowcountry marshes of South Carolina.

While Green's art continues to express the same energy, color, and deep respect for his ancestors, his techniques have evolved to feature bolder brush strokes and a use of depth and texture, all guided by his maturing artistic vision that is now more often about experiencing freedom and contentment through his art. This vision is reflected in the 179 new paintings featured in Gullah Spirit. His open and inviting images beckon the world to not only see this vanishing culture but also to embrace its truth and enduring spirit.

Using both the aesthetics of his heritage and the abstraction of the human figure, Green creates an almost mythological narrative from his everyday observations of rural and urban environments. Expressed through his mastery of color, Green illuminates the challenges and beauty of work, love, belonging, and the richness of community.

Angela D. Mack, executive director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina, provides a foreword. The book also includes short essays by historian Walter B. Edgar, educator Kim Cliett Long, and curator Kevin Grogan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781643362144

Jonathan Green

JONATHAN GREEN is an award-winning writer of speculative fiction with more than eighty books to his name. He has written everything from Fighting Fantasy gamebooks to Doctor Who novels, by way of Sonic the Hedgehog, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Judge Dredd. He is the creator of the Pax Britannia steampunk series for Abaddon Books, and the author of the critically-acclaimed, YOU ARE THE HERO – A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks.

Book preview

GULLAH SPIRIT

GULLAH SPIRIT

The Art of

JONATHAN GREEN

Jonathan Green

© 2021 University of South Carolina

Published by the University of South Carolina Press

Columbia, South Carolina 29208

www.uscpress.com

Manufactured in China

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/.

ISBN 978-1-64336-213-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-64336-214-4 (ebook)

Photographs courtesy of Jonathan Green Studios archive.

Frontispiece: Harvest Dance, 2000. Oil on Canvas, 60 × 48".

FRONT COVER ILLUSTRATION: A Time for Love, 1996. Oil on Canvas, 60 × 48"

This book is dedicated to Kim Cliett Long, EdD.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Angela Mack

The Carolina Lowcountry: An Elegy and an Ode

Walter Edgar

Jonathan Green: An Appreciation

Kevin Grogan

Jonathan Green in Two Parts: Renaissance Man and Servant Leader

Kim Cliett Long

THE PAINTINGS

Acknowledgments

Index

Angela Mack

FOREWORD

Twenty-five years have passed since the publication of Gullah Images: The Art of Jonathan Green. Described in Pat Conroy’s eloquent foreword as marking the middle of his artistic career, Gullah Images not only chronicles Green’s considerable artistic accomplishments up to that point but also sets expectations for the future that have now been realized and documented throughout this volume.

With time comes experience, and with experience comes a sense of self that has increased Green’s influence across the country not only as an artist and designer but also as an art collector, humanitarian, cultural ambassador, and philanthropist. Green’s reach and influence are extraordinary. And although Green will tell you that his success stems from the adage, paint what you know, in fact, audiences around the world have come to know the Gullah community of his birth through him.

Often Jonathan Green is identified as the first classically trained Gullah artist in America, which also synopsizes his journey. Born in Gardens Corner, South Carolina, his specialness was recognized and marked from birth. A caul, an inner fetal membrane that covered his head at birth, is interpreted by some societies as a token of great luck, but in the Gullah tradition it also signifies that a child will be a point of pride for the community, a prophecy that has been fulfilled in the intervening six decades.

The second of seven children, Green was raised by his maternal grandmother, who not only taught him the Gullah language but also the traditions of his ancestors that stretch back to the Gold Coast of West Africa. Gullah is a name used to describe a population of people descended from the Africans who were enslaved and brought to America to labor on the rice and indigo plantations along the coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia. Their agricultural skills and knowledge and later their deeply rooted sense of community have been a great source of pride for generations, even during the harshest and most brutal of times. This pride is most evident through generational storytelling. Green’s young life began by his listening to myriad stories told by his community elders. He was also taught that education and hard work were keys to success. After graduating from high school where his artistic bent was first noticed, he did a brief stint in the United States Air Force, mostly to achieve a scholarship for further education. He set his sights