Swamp Thoughts — Ossabaw Island, John Gholson

31°47′40″N · 81°6′44″W · Ossabaw Island, Georgia

SWAMP THOUGHTS

Oil on Canvas — Painted on Location

Medium Oil on Canvas
Location Ossabaw Island, Georgia
Artist John Gholson
Period circa 2008–2013

The fresh-water impoundments in the interior of the island breed a particular stillness. The cordgrass. The reflective pale sky. A single bare tree holding the left edge of the composition. The painting is nearly abstract — forms readable but dissolved into each other, the way the marsh itself resists clarity. Ralph Ellison came to this island. Olive Ann Burns wrote here. Both worked on interiority. This is the interior of the island, rendered in its own logic.