Rooted in Memory: The Gullah Geechee Vision of Jonathan Green opens at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina, running through 24 January. The show weaves contemporary paintings with historic baskets, quilts and dolls, offering a tactile portrait of a culture that has survived along the Lowcountry for centuries.

At the heart of the exhibition is the 2005 oil Time to Rejoice, a luminous scene of nine women in bright shirts and wide‑brimmed hats surrounding a dancing figure whose hat hovers off her head. The composition recalls the ecstatic gatherings described in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, turning a moment of collective liberation into a visual hymn.

Curator Ben Billingsley highlights how the work bridges past and present: the figures wear modern blue‑chain garments, grounding the painting in today’s Gullah Geechee experience while echoing the lineage of ancestors who first set foot on these shores. A three‑generation donor family has loaned a personal collection, illustrating how private stewardship can become public celebration.

Green’s style is “deceptively simple.” From a distance the canvases appear straightforward, but a closer look reveals hundreds of brushstrokes per square inch, each layer adding nuance to the hidden faces and gestures. The partial anonymity of the women invites viewers to project their own memories onto the scene, turning the subjects into universal avatars of resilience.

The exhibition also presents four watercolor costume sketches Green created for a Sapelo‑Island production of Porgy and Bess. These pieces imagine West African textile traditions arriving not through forced migration but through voluntary cultural exchange, suggesting a vibrant, alternate history for the Lowcountry’s visual language.

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