Vanessa Albury | A. Bills-Levi | Gayle Brooker | Lisa Chou | Margaret Clarke | T. Davidson | Steven Davis | John Duckworth | Meghan Henley | Krist Mills | Sue Murray | Dorothy Netherlands | Rachel O’Neal | Larissa Patel | Lynn Patterson | Matt Smithson | Jonathan Walsh

To create an exhibit drawn from works by Studio Art graduates may seem to be a daunting task; faced with so many choices, the result could become merely arbitrary or too disparate to cohere as an exhibition. But in fact, my experience was quite the contrary. All artists have at least one thing in common—they all have influences. And for all of these artists, one of their most influential experiences was the time they spent as Studio Art students at the College of Charleston.

In this exhibit, I see the influences as well as the individual accomplishments of artists who studied here at the College. Whether faintly or pronounced, the impressions of their Studio Art professors resonate in these works. The goal, however, of myself and Dr. Marian Mazzone was to choose a select group of Studio Art alumni whose works have continued to develop, becoming their own unique creations and contributions. By limiting the selection to Studio Art graduates of the past ten years, we were able to look at the work of artists who are still developing their sense of “self” in the art world, while also still having some identity with the College.

Steve Davis was born in Greenville, South Carolina in January of 1977. In 1992 he moved with his mother to Charleston, where he attended James Island High School. Steve graduated in 1995. Not too sure about what he wanted to do with his life, Steve meandered through a few semesters at Trident Technical College. It was there that he discovered what he did not want to do, just about everything. In the fall of 1998, Steve found himself at the College of Charleston, where he studied art. Until this point Steve worked with two-dimensional spaces only part of the time, because he never had seriously considered being an artist as a career choice. Once he was introduced to sculpture and all of the neat tools one can use in 3-D art, Steve could not imagine doing anything else. Steve graduated with a BA in Studio Art in June of 2001. In the January of 2002, Steve moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in order “kick-start” life. Soon after arriving in Hawaii, he became an assistant to glass artist and professor of glass, Rick Mills. Working with Rick helped Steve learn new skills as well as develop into a working artist. Steve is currently still living and working in Honolulu while attending classes at the University of Hawaii. He plans to attend Graduate School in the near future, he just doesn’t know where yet.