If you want to understand our culture, take a close look at our people. Our workshop is filled with many muses—a dynamic cast of characters that are as passionate about what they do as they are about how they do it. It’s our privilege to highlight these unique individuals who inspire us every day, each rendered by a different artist of equal acclaim. Taken together, it’s a celebration of the craftsman as much as the craft, and as far as we’re concerned, it’s the ultimate group show.

CharcoaL, ink and chalk on paper
by jill hooper
CHARLESTON, SC | LONDON, UK

Jill Hooper is a classical realist painter focused on the figurative form, splitting her time between Charleston and London, where she teaches and exhibits on both sides of the pond. Permanently collected by multiple institutions, Jill is the youngest living artist to ever be collected by the Gibbes Museum of Art.

Mixed media on vintage album cover
by KEVIN PAULSEN
KINGSTON, NY

Known for his character-filled, scenic landscapes that combine elements of fine and folk art, Kevin Paulsen produces large-scale murals and paintings out of his studio in Kingston.

CUT PATINATED STEEL
by FLETCHER WILLIAMS
CHARLESTON, SC

Fletcher Williams is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Charleston. Fletcher is known for his large-scale sculpture and installation works, informed by the vernacular and material culture of the American South.

OIL ON CANVAS
by CORY BRADLEY
CHARLESTON, SC

A voracious multi-hyphenate with boundless curiosity, Cory Bradley’s artistry has many modes of expression, spanning from painting and photography to engineering.

GRAPHITE ON BRISTOL
GEDDES JONES PAULSEN
KINGSTON, NY

Raised on Nantucket as the child of artists and designers, Geddes Paulsen has been drawing as long as he can remember. Today, his upbringing finds expression in his work as both a painter and a tattoo artist, with influences from surrealism and outsider art.

Acrylic, woody, oil pastel & marker
on recycled paper & hardboard
by Nathan Edwin Clements
CHARLESTON, SC

A former singer/songwriter turned visual artist, Nathan McClements uses bold colors and found materials to depict portraits of rogues and renegades from musicians to cowboys.

WATERCOLOR AND PEN ON PAPER
RIKI MATSUDA
CORK, IRELAND

Riki Matsuda is a Japanese-Irish artist whose drawings and installations center around communication and how language both serves us and deserts us.

Assembled felt
BY SAM SIDNEY
CHARLESTON, SC

A former illustrator, Sam Sidney shifted her focus to felt during the pandemic as a way to engage her children with a daily art activity. Her hand-cut collages quickly found a larger following.

WATERCOLOR AND INK ON COTTON PAPER
CARLISLE BURCH
PHOENIX, AZ

Carlisle Burch is a visual artist based in Phoenix. Working primarily in drawing and painting, her imagery is rooted in memories from a childhood spent in the Mojave Desert and draws from 20th-century cartoons and American mythologies.

Conté and crayon on paper
BY LOUISE CAMILLE FENNE
SVENDBORG, FUNEN, DENMARK

Born in Denmark and trained in Florence, Louise Fenne’s body of work includes life-like portraits mixed with elements of the natural world.

Pen and watercolor on paper
LUKAS PALUMBO
PORTLAND, ME

Lukas Palumbo is an illustrator, designer and world-builder inspired by the hand-hewn past. He looks most often to the 17th and 18th centuries for inspiration, but enjoys art and objects from all eras of antiquity.

Colored pencil on paper
BY JACK PENNY
WEST SUSSEX, UK

From his rural studio in Bosham, Jack Penny paints energetic figurative scenes of city life with the wit of a satirist and the eye of a cultural anthropologist.

OIL ON WOOD
RIIVO KRUUK
CHARLESTON, sc

Riivo Kruuk is an Estonian-American multidisciplinary artist based in Charleston. Riivo’s work intricately weaves folklore and traditional motifs from different cultures with contemporary and pop culture elements.

Further Reading

In The Spotlight: UECo Creative Director Michael Amato

The Water is Wide

The Current x The Dewberry