The Red Piano Art Gallery Hilton Head Island Sc 29928

JONATHAN GREEN

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

The Morris Museum – Augusta, GA
The McKissick Museum – Columbia, SC
The IFCC Cultural Eye, Portland , OR
The Norton Gallery – West Palm Beach, Fl
The Beach Institute Museum – Savannah, GA
The Afro-American Museum of Philadelphia
The Gibbes Museum of Art – Charleston, SC
The Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
The Combo Center for the Arts, Naples, FL
The Afro-American Cultural Middle, Charlotte, NC

HONORS AND AWARDS

1998. "Certificate of Appreciation" for his contributions in expressing the imagery, values, traditions and way of life of the Gullah culture --- Portland, OR

1996. Honorary Doctorate Degree in Fine Arts – University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC

"Alberta Peacock Award" for contributions to the arts – Naples, FL

1993. "Martin Luther Rex, Jr. Humanitarian Award" for the arts – Beaufort, SC

1992. "Penn Center Heritage Celebrations Resolution" to Jonathan Light-green for artistic rendition of Gullah life styles and artistic contributions – Saint Helena Island, SC

1991. "Recognition of Outstanding Contributions To The Arts," Beaufort County Council – Beaufort, SC

1988. "Chatham County Medallion" for artistic and cultural contributions – Savannah, GA

1987 "On The Move Laurels for Artistic Expressions" Human resource Development Institute – Chicago, IL

1985 "Key to the City" – Savannah, GA

EXHIBITIONS

May 16 - July 31, 1999
" I Made This Jar.." The Life and Works of Enslaved African-American Potter, Dave. Exhibition includes 5 painting by Jonathan Green that back up the theme of the exhibition and the works of the potter, Dave.

High Museum of Fine art
Georgia- Pacific Eye
133 Peachtree Street, NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30303

July 1 - September v, 1999

Across Two Worlds
Albany Museum of Art
311 Meadowlark Bulldoze
Albany GA, 31707
(941) 497-1283
Kris Miler Zohn - Curator

October 3, 1999 - Feb 28, 2000

Ties That Bind - Julia J. Normal Collection
McKissick Museum
University of Southward Carolina
Colombia, SC 29208
(803) 777-7251
Jay Williams, Curator
Includes approximately 22 painting by Jonathan Green

October 9, 1999 - Jan two, 2000
" I Made This Jar.." The Life and Works of Enslaved African-American Potter, Dave. Exhibition includes 5 painting by Jonathan Light-green that support the theme of the exhibition and the works of the potter, Dave.

Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History Detroit, Michigan

November 6, 1999 - January five, 2000

The Fine art of Jonathan Light-green
The Cocky Family unit Arts Centre
14 Shelter Cove Lane
Hilton Head Isle, SC 29928
(843) 686-3945
Solo exhibition of approximately 25 painting by Jonathan Greenish

February v - June 25, 2000
" I Made This Jar.." The Life and Works of Enslaved African-American Potter, Dave. Exhibition includes 5 painting by Jonathan Green that support the theme of the exhibition and the works of the potter, Dave.

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Winterthur, Delaware

1983-99 37 Solo Exhibitions including 14 Museums

1984-99 41 Group Exhibitions including 22 Museums

DEGREES AND STUDIES

1982. The School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL – B.F.A.

1991. Independent studies throughout the U.s. and 8 countries

Collected Artworks Displayed In Public Spaces in Charleston

1. Charleston Grill located in the 5 Star Charleston Place Hotel, Charleston, South Carolina
2. Embassy Suites Hotel, Celebrated Commune, Charleston, South Carolina
3. Louis's Eatery and Bar, Charleston, Southward Carolina
4. Medical Academy of South Carolina, Courteney Street Art Gallery, Charleston, South Carolina
5. The Gibbes Museum, Charleston, South Carolina

JONATHAN GREEN

A Master of Historical Memory

American Born 8/9/55


Noted art critics and reviewers consider Jonathan Dark-green one of the almost important painters of the southern experience. His work, which has been exhibited in major venues nationally an internationally, reflect an intrinsic sense of history and place. A mature creative person in his forties, Jonathan Dark-green's art is noted in hundreds of reviews, and publications, the most noteworthy beingness Gullah Images: The Art of Jonathan Green by the University of South Carolina Press.

Jonathan Green first constitute back up for his involvement in the arts at Beaufort High School nigh Gardens Corner, South Carolina where he was born and raised. When he left the state in the early 1970s to written report at the Schoolhouse of the Art Institute of Chicago, his acute historical awareness and propensity for documentiation were already inherently germinated. Since earning the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the Art Establish of Chicago in 1982, Jonathan Dark-green'south work has progressed, integrated, and recorded essential elements of American civilisation comparable to that of other master artists such as Edward Hopper, Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, and Jacob Lawrence. Recognizing his outstanding and extensive documentation of southern culture and tradition in his work, the University of South Carolina in 1996 awarded Light-green an honorary doctorate degree in fine fine art.

The multicultural uniqueness and historical authenticity of Jonathan Dark-green'southward paintings, prints, and constructions are skillfully extracted from his recollections of life amidst grandparents who raised him and other proud descendents of the rural African American community in S Carolina where he grew up. Collectively these works chronicle the vibrant lives of his extended family unit and neighbors who elected to alive harmoniously with the land and each other. They affirm how nurturing and cohesive are the relationships and communities of the southern civilisation.

The tales, stories, and rituals passed down for generations through oral traditions take been further authenticated and visually immortalized past Jonathan Green'southward interpretive, colorful adaptions in his paintings. A monograph published past the McKissick Museum in Columbia, South Carolina declares that "Jonathan Greenish's work comes from the Southern feel. Out of his fond childhood memories come celebrations of life. His goal is to bring forth a story and reflect information technology visually in a language to which people can relate. This is why his paintings announced pure, innocent, and honest. He pulls the past generations to the present and builds a bridge between the two. In the process he emphasizes the importance of love, belonging , and a sense of spirituality and piece of work."

In spite of the detailed contents of his elected bailiwick thing, Jonathan Dark-green's work evidences mastery of southern history and documentation, imbued with simplicity and integrity that refrain the contributions his immediate and extended family unit fabricated to advance their customs traditions, replete with refinement of purpose and resoluteness of spirit.

Jonathan Greenish's art is grounded in his existent life experiences with a profound respect for the sacredness of heritage. Strong compositional skills, bright expressions of color and innovative employ of materials reflect his mastery of modernist techniques. Dearest for the human effigy and the placement of his subjects in harmony with their customs and surroundings are among many of his universal strengths as an creative person

Jonathan Green's piece of work reflects the everyday life of African-Americans in the Southward Carolina Lowcountry. Born in 1955, he was raised in Gardens Corner where he learned to speak the Gullah dialect and adult a strong feeling for his cultural heritage. As a child, he lived with his grandparents and visited his mother in New York during his vacations. She had moved in that location seeking better opportunities. He lived with her for several years during his preteen years before returning to South Carolina.

Like many young people, Jonathan Green had no specific career plans after completing school. College was not a possibility. Jonathan Dark-green liked to draw, only was sure he could non support himself equally an artist. His feel living out of state had given him a taste of what the world outside South Carolina was like. So Jonathan Green joined the military in order to obtain an education and to have the opportunity to travel. The armed services recruiter had told him he would be able to attend analogy school while in service. However, despite his creative ability, Jonathan Green was assigned the job of melt and sent off to North Dakota. In an interview he recounted his low over what seemed a hopeless situation. Simply he discovered a technical college nearby in Minnesota where he was able to report analogy. His teachers encouraged him to visit Chicago with its art museums and to consider a career in fine art. After completing military service, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago and earned a bachelor'south caste in 1982. While enrolled in school, he worked function-fourth dimension as a security guard at the museum. This enabled him to study great art at the task he needed to support himself. Learning virtually slap-up art, he first imitated others and then found his own direction, painting the globe of his youth. By the time he graduated, he was condign known equally an creative person and became able to support himself with his painting since that time.

Jonathan Green paints the scenes and the people he knew as a kid, pictures of what may be a vanishing way of life. His colorful paintings in acrylic and oil accept helped to preserve the Gullah civilization. His work ranges from scenes of everyday life, such as a daughter walking a domestic dog, a adult female hanging out laundry, and men picking oysters, to special occasions such equally a wedding or a christening. While Jonathan Dark-green paints the earth in which he lived every bit a youth, his piece of work also focuses on the problems of living in a multi-racial guild today.

Jonathan Greenish has had many shows and exhibits, including 1 at the McKissick Museum in Columbia in 1993 that traveled to a number of states. He has co-authored a successful children'south book. His piece of work has also appeared on calendars, posters, and on the encompass of a cookbook. His paintings can be constitute in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, S.C., the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Ga., the Norton Gallery Museum in West Palm Embankment, Fl., the McKissick Museum in Columbia, S.C., and the Philharmonic Centre for the Arts in Naples, Fl. He has received a number of awards recognizing his work and his civic contributions. He received six awards for contributions to the arts from borough and other organizations, was a nominee for the NAACP's National Paradigm Award, received the Alberta Peacock Honour in 1996, and was the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Art from the University of South Carolina in 1996. He was listed in Who'south Who in American Fine art in 1995-96.

Jonathan Dark-green has also been a contributing member of the community. He was a fellow member of the Board of Directors of Share Our Force, a community organisation that helps to combat hunger, Vice-President of the Collier County United Arts Council in Naples, Fl., and a board member of the Chicago University for the Arts.

A new book that reproduces a number of his nigh beautiful paintings showcases his work. Gullah Images: The Fine art of Jonathan Green demonstrates how Jonathan Green's work has grown and inverse over the years. In an article in The Country newspaper, Jeffrey Day wrote, "His earliest images, from 1985, are somber and simple...past the belatedly '80s his palette bloomed with bright colors and bolder patterns that would become the ascendant forces in his art".

Green now lives in Naples, Florida, in an area that he says is very similar to the S Carolina Lowcountry.

Commentary by

Pat Conroy

When Jonathan Green came into the world, he brought with him an inescapable sign of his specialness. He was born wearing a caul, an inner fetal membrane that covered his head at birth. In some societies, this is interpreted as a token of bully luck or that this kid volition never know death past drowning. But in the Gullah lodge forth the Due south Carolina coast, information technology insures that the child is touched by an uncommonness and magic that will bring inordinate grace to the community. From the beginning, Jonathan Green was marked and grew upwards known as "the child of the veil."

Jonathan Green, an creative person indigenous to Beaufort County, South Carolina, is in the heart of a career that finds him painting the autobiography of his childhood. Jonathan Green paints what fabricated him, the source he issued out of, the forms that inspired his rare sensibility. It is this singular, unshakable vision that gives his work its aura of astonishing originality. Each one of Jonathan Green paintings looks as though information technology were a commemorative stamp imagined out of the backcountry of Jonathan Green'due south unconscious. Jonathan Green is the immaculate, existent matter, and his art is a weep of pure love for his community, his family, and the geography of the Carolina Sea Islands.

In his art, Jonathan Green is that rarest of twentieth-century painters in that he dares to tell a story. In that location is a stiff narrative flow that binds his work to a primal theme. By capturing the essence of the Gullah culture that raised him, in that location is a sense of both commemoration and rediscovery to all his work. His paintings comprise some of the archaic, raw beauty I once saw when I visited the cavern paintings of our Cro-Magnon ancestors in the Dordogne Valley of French republic. They possess that kind of mythic grace and nameless grandeur that I observed in those thrilling, ill-lit French caves filled with fabulous images over ten grand years erstwhile. Like those anonymous cavern painters, Jonathan Green paints what he considers sacred and essential and mysterious in his own life. It remains a archaic urge for the artist to search for a definition of self that he can live past, and Jonathan Light-green chose to illuminate the life of his community along Highway 21 from Gardens Corner to Yemassee. By narrowing his vision so finely, he discovered himself as an creative person and fabricated his works both magisterial and universal. By returning to the source, he discovered the inexhaustible mainstream of his life's piece of work. Because he so fully understands what he is doing and why, there is never a false note registered on his canvases. Few painters tin can match Jonathan Green's shining actuality.

If you study his work carefully, y'all can notice the peacock-tail dear of color establish amid Haitian painters, then on a much deeper level, you begin to sense the timelessness of Africa. The influence of African culture is notwithstanding establish today in Beaufort County in rich and delightful ways and the banner of the lost and scattered tribes is still written on the faces of the Gullah people. Jonathan Light-green himself possesses a face of infrequent beauty that makes you think of exiled princes. When he speaks of  his dreams, y'all know that he sometimes paints from images stolen from his sleeping life. Yous besides know that he dreams in fabulous colors. His apply of bright colors is reckless enough that he could easily land a job painting new species of parrots and songbirds in some undiscovered rain wood. The Gullah people depicted in Jonathan  Green's world look like they got dressed while staring at rainbows. His art is a love song to his past. You imagine him singing every bit he paints, an ode to joy and the vivid astonishment of retentivity.

In the S where Jonathan Green and I were born, we could not have sat together on the same bus, boozer from the aforementioned h2o fountain, attended the same school, saturday in the same waiting room at a doc'southward office, worshiped the same God together, or voted in the same ballot. It was a hard, unregenerate South we were born into, one obsessed by race, and it was the i part of the country where a white man would never be asked to write an introduction to a book praising a black man's art. Both of us came of historic period during the Civil Rights motion and both of us lived in Beaufort when Martin Luther King and his lieutenants came to Penn Middle on Helena's Island to plan the marches and demonstrations that would alter our part of the world. The Ku Klux Klan would meet along the same Highway 21 where about of Jonathan's paintings have their origin. I attended an all-white Beaufort Loftier School, yet he graduated from that same school, fully integrated, x years later. Both of us share an ardent love of Beaufort County and both believe it is one of the loveliest parts of the planet, but our Beauforts are still two different places, worlds apart both texture and fourth dimension.

I had been a fan of Jonathan Green'south work, having admired his paintings Elayne Scott'south Red Piano Also Gallery on St. Helena'southward Isle long earlier His work reminded me with startling clarity of the i yr I spent teaching black children on Daufuskie Island, the first year that white teachers were sent to formerly all-black schools. My stay on the island had concluded badly when the superintendent fired me one Friday night, just he could not dim the powerful associations I had built upwardly between my students and their parents. I had fallen in love with the people of Daufuskie Island and I wrote my book The Water Is Wide to requite voice to that dear.  Jonathan Green's art took me direct dorsum to that time when I steered a boat out across the marshes of Beaufort County to teach everyday. Here were the oystermen I passed in the river, the baptisms in the modest creeks, the yards full of children and chickens and dogs, the companionship of women, the wisdom of old men, the nobility of cattle and hogs-all of information technology coming out in a smashing tide of artistic labor. He was painting the life that he had led and the 1 I had been allowed to visit for a single year of my life, and like a fine novelist, Jonathan Green was getting all the details right.  One Saturday in March of 1996, I drove Jonathan Light-green through the lowcountry that we both cherish and both use equally the basis for our art. I wanted to see his Beaufort and he showed it to me as nosotros rode out toward Yemassee to his father's trailer and an amazing yard filled with derelict cars and bizarre, oddball collections of castaway fencing and edifice supplies, as hunting beagles barked at us from homemade pens. His grandmother's trailer was nearby and she welcomed u.s.a. inside and instantly we were engulfed in color every bit though we had entered into a Byzantine tent in a story of the Arabian nights. An artist was destined to come up from a family with such passion for color and sense of form.

Then we drove amongst his mother'due south people and I learned where Jonathan came by his boggling gentleness, his all-encompassing serenity. Many were farmers and they lived in simple simply lovely houses off the primary highway with wood-called-for stoves and pictures of Jesus on the wall. I saturday with his mother and aunt in Burton, South Carolina, and they talked about the early signs of Jonathan'southward artistry surfacing throughout the long, growing seasons of his childhood. In many of the houses we entered, there was an original oil painting that Jonathan had given to some of his favorite relatives as a gift.

Nosotros paid a special visit to his maternal grandmother'southward grave nigh the church of his childhood and he showed me the remnants of that church building that had been destroyed during Hurricane Gracie. Jonathan described the rituals of full immersion in the saltwater creek near the church building and the fasting for 7 days and nights in the lowcountry forest that his congregation required of any candidate for baptism. He was telling me that his art had a spiritual origin intimately related to his mission as an creative person to preserve the Gullah culture that had nurtured and cherished and brought him into manhood. No one we met that day, as we went from house to house along the country road off Highway 21, had whatsoever doubts virtually the great talent of Jonathan Dark-green. Nigh had been there or close by on the day of his nascence and knew that his gift had come preordained, that his artistry was written into the symbols and myths surrounding his nascency, and that extraordinary things were expected of the "child of the veil" by the Gullah people who knew how to read the underground signs of the lowcountry.

Enter the Jonathan Light-green Gallery

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