New Telfair Museums exhibition explores Ossabaw Island through art

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - The Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center is presenting a new exhibition from Mar. 13 to Sept. 6 that examines the impact of Ossabaw Island, an undeveloped, 26,000-acre barrier island off the coast of Savannah, on artists working in the United States.

“Off the Coast of Paradise: Artists and Ossabaw Island, 1961–Now” is the first major exhibition to explore the island’s influence on the visual arts. The show takes its name from a poem by celebrated poet and former Genesis member Henri Cole.

Erin Dunn, the Museums’ Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, joined Morning Break to share what inspired the exhibition.

Dunn says the exhibition focuses on the Ossabaw Island Project (OIP) and Genesis, a pair of multidisciplinary residency programs that ran on the island from 1961 to 1982. Ossabaw Island is examined as a site for creative experimentation, with work spanning the historical, environmental, social, cultural, and personal.

Artists featured in the show

The exhibition features work from artists including Harry Bertoia, Agnes Denes, Marcy Hermansader, Suzanne Jackson, Ellen Lanyon, Doris Lee, Sally Mann, Michael Mazur, Ross McElwee, Athena Tacha, Betty Tompkins, and Anne Truitt, among many others. The show also includes a major new commission by Allison Janae Hamilton.