COLLECTION NAME:
Undergraduate Thesis Collection
Record
Title:
The Tradition of Story Telling in Gullah Contemporary Painting
Creator:
Woolard, Jane
Subject:
Thesis (B.F.A.) -- Art History
Subject:
Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Art History
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Abstract:
“This thesis investigates the connection between Gullah folklore and Gullah contemporary painting. The current literature on Gullah's contemporary painting is limited in scope. Even the few published articles about the artists in this paper offer only a small window into the oral traditions the artists are pulling from. Gullah storytellers used folklore to uplift people's spirits during hardship. This serves as a way for the Gullah storytellers and artists to pass on important life lessons, history, and continuous cultural practices from one generation to the next. These themes continue through contemporary Gullah paintings. Jonathan Green, Patricia Sabreee, Leroy Campbell, and Sonja Griffin-Evans are all artists who share the Gullah culture. Their artwork is closely tied to their lived experiences. These artists take their stories, memories, and life lessons and transform them from a verbal tradition to a visual form. This paper uses oral histories and ethnographic interviews conducted with these contemporary Gullah artists to highlight their artwork and their shared cultural traditions. Below, I will discuss two images by each of these important Gullah Artists, including the memories, stories, goals, and messages within the paintings. As such, the goal of this work is to outline the traditional approach each of the artists uses from their own visual perspective and highlight the larger contextual factors that create this genre of contemporary Gullah storytelling painting. Works highlighted in the thesis include, Green’s paintings Cane Women and Enchanted Memories, Sabreee’s A Funky-Kinda Party and A River That Grows, Campbell's Recess and Passing Down the Tradition, and lastly, Griffin-Evans’s paintings American Gullah and First Decoration Day.” –Abstract
Publisher:
Savannah, Georgia: Savannah College of Art and Design
Date:
2024-05
Format:
1 online resource: 1 PDF (Thesis, 40 pages, color illustrations)