THE ART OF JONATHAN GREEN

Jonathan Green, Painter and Printmaker

Bold patterns and startling solids in red, yellow or green play in a world of dance halls, beaches, schoolrooms and churches.

Jonathan Green's vibrantly colorful art is the quintessential rendering of Gullah life in South Carolina's Lowcountry coast. Jonathan learned the Gullah dialect and culture as a child growing up in the home of his maternal grandmother in the 1960s.

As the first known artist of Gullah heritage to receive formal training at a professional art school, the Art Institute of Chicago, Jonathan has created more than 1, 700 works that capture in one way or another the unique African-American culture he considers his own. While this body of work surely represents the most ambitious artistic expression of Sea Islands' culture ever successfully undertaken, to Jonathan, recalling on canvas the feel, texture and color of a rapidly disappearing way of life is simply a labor of love—with just a hint of social responsibility.

"I know I can't save a whole culture," he says with a sigh, "but I can help create greater awareness."