P O R T R A I T O F A N A R T I ST AS A M A N
P O R T R A I T O F A N A R T I ST AS A M A N
FLETCHER WILLIAMS III
A FRESH PRESENCE IN THE NATIONAL ART WORLD WHO CREATES LARGE-SCALE PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, MIXED MEDIA WORKS AND CIVIC INSTALLATIONS FROM HIS CHARLESTON STUDIO, FLETCHER WILLIAMS HAS GAINED A FOLLOWING FROM NEW YORK TO LOS ANGELES. BUT, LIKE MANY ARTISTS, THERE IS MORE TO HIM THAN MEETS THE EYE. THERE IS THE PERSON, THE PERSONA AND THE PARTS UNKNOWN—ASPECTS DEFINED AS MUCH BY HIS FEARLESS APPROACH TO NEW IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES AS BY HIS REFUSAL TO BE CATEGORIZED BY THEM.
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After we encountered the work of Fletcher Williams over the past few years, and began collecting a bit of it, too, we were charmed. Fletcher is an imaginative artist whose beautiful paintings, provocative sculptures and installations present a fresh perspective on historical narratives. The trifecta of competing identities that comes with expressing creativity out loud, in the open, for others to witness and collect is something Fletcher is just beginning to reconcile. On the one hand, it’s a necessary part of the professional journey for any working artist—to be able to make a living in the visual realm, after all, requires balancing one’s private inner space against an increasingly public image. On the other, it’s also an intrinsic piece of the creative process. “Part of the practice that people don’t often realize is that sense of self-discovery,” Fletcher says. “There is a lot of push and pull, yin and yang, a sense of the abstract, in my work. That path is continuous for me, and joyous.”
THE PERSON A North Charleston native, Fletcher’s talent was evident from a young age. “As a child I was painting everywhere,” he says. Encouraged by his mother, a professor, and various teachers along the way, Fletcher followed an art-centric path from grade school straight on to New York City, where he scored a spot at the prestigious Cooper Union. A powerhouse university and creative arts institution just southeast of Union Square, the school is as renowned for its rigorous education as it is for the caliber of contemporary visionaries who matriculate into its programs. During his time in New York, Fletcher dabbled in various fields and odd jobs, from a part-time gig at an Apple Store to a stint working at Cavi, a men’s fashion label that pushed the envelope on streetwear and precision tailoring. Through it all, his studies left him with not only a deep appreciation for New York and its incomparably rich art world, but also a new outlook on Charleston. “I had a professor at Cooper Union who helped me
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understand that language was the original practice,” Fletcher says. “The focus of study was on uncovering the sociology behind culture—studying culture, relating to culture and recognizing the importance of culture in what members of a community choose to share or not share. Ultimately, that level of thought has also helped me see the ways in which linguistic and cultural delineations directly connect to authenticity and historical narratives, which has had a huge impact.” His friend of more than a decade, Dwight Lazarus, who is based in New York, puts it this way: “Fletcher has always been a storyteller. He thrives in spaces where he can bring modernity to history. And he does it in a way that no one else does. Every time I see his work, it’s like it’s the first time, and yet, I totally recognize it, too. It’s that sense that deeper ideas, a collective experience or concept, are bubbling up and being rearranged in a fresh, ofthe-moment way.”
In addition to his work in New York, which is characterized by experimentation and artistic exploration and a candid critique of the role galleries play in an artist’s life, Fletcher’s work since returning to Charleston, in 2013, has been driven by his relationship to the Lowcountry and its diverse communities and culture. He has developed public initiatives that recognize specialized artisanship and handwork, celebrating the art of sweetgrass basketry and championing its economic reevaluation, for example, and utilizing the skills of Palmetto rose weavers in various projects; designed signage that reimagines the public square as a place where all communities, not just the dominant ones, can claim visibility and privilege; and hosted performative shows that address Charleston’s complicated history of cultural, social and spacial division.
“I’ve just been more aware of culture and how it impacts people, both as a participant and an observer,” he says. “And with Black culture being such an important part of Charleston’s history, there’s that component that’s always kinda in the back of my mind—I guess because I call myself a descendant of these original practitioners, these artists in the Geechee community. So even though I don’t always have a specific objective going into the work, I know that everything I experience on a day-to-day basis becomes part of my work in some way. And I’m conscious of adding to a larger story, regardless of whether I can visualize the exact outcome at the outset. When I work with bricks, for instance, I ask myself, ‘What am I doing to contribute to
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the Geechee narrative? How am I augmenting that work and redirecting it?’ And it all goes back to Cooper and that emphasis on understanding culture and social landscape in a connected, big picture way.”
THE PERSONA In the summer of 2020, Fletcher was riding a wave of exposure and prominence brought on by Promiseland, a sweeping exhibition staged at the historic Aiken-Rhett House and produced in collaboration with the Historic Charleston Foundation. The multimedia show contained thirteen pieces of original artwork, including works on paper, video projection, sculpture and environmental installations, situated throughout the property. Guiding visitors beyond the big house to the dwellings and spaces where the former enslaved populations once lived, worked and slept, it delivered a dynamic and immersive experience that both educated and engaged visitors. It also focused on the lines of demarcation—both visible and unseen—that define boundaries. Promiseland debuted to unanimous acclaim, and amplified Fletcher’s influence in the art world. The Gibbes Museum of Art, in Charleston, purchased a piece for its permanent collection, cementing a relationship with Fletcher that had begun years prior. The work also attracted a wider audience across the country. The actress Busy Phillips, who fell in love with all things Charleston while filming an HBO series here a few years back, purchased one of the exhibit’s untitled pieces, a large-scale horizontal painting that had been positioned prominently in Aiken-Rhett’s Drawing Room for her Los Angeles home. Multiple national publications, including Veranda, also rushed to devote pages to Fletcher’s professional and personal journey in subsequent issues. For Fletcher, the attention is both welcome and slightly unsettling. And yet it also reflects the friction inherent in being an artist. “What I’m getting [from Promiseland] is, I think, what happens with all artists, too. There is a certain expectation, depending on when someone was introduced to your work, that they will want to see rendered similarly going forward,” Fletcher says. “And my work can evolve very quickly, or I could abandon something very quickly, and want something very new.” He continues, “There are transitional pieces in my practice, and also a component of my work that anyone who lives in
the South, or who has a relationship with where they live, identifies with because they are interested in the history and the origin of that place. But I can say that I’ve steered myself away from and also toward this historical narrative, and that intention and conflict are ingrained in my work.” In recent years, one form has emerged as a signature in Fletcher’s work: the wooden picket. A simple column with a squoval upper silhouette reminiscent of Shaker styles, it borders on the primitive. But this picket—which Fletcher selected as the Platonic ideal of pickets after a search more exhaustive than most blockbuster movie castings—is infused with meaning. A brief retrospective: Set against a popping backdrop of color, the picket is a mark against which to experiment with turmeric-colored dye, as he did in the piece “Turmeric #1” (see page 188), in 2020. Slanted at an angle, the perspective of the pickets on the green background in “Shadow 001” (see page 214) evokes the brightness of a manicured lawn, plush with grass and landowning promise. Superimposed over the punchy blue and orange of a transportation crew member’s vest, “Untitled” (see page 207) acts as a top layer to a story of blue collar labor and the American dream. Within the context of Promiseland, the picket also evokes both the metaphorical line between two groups of people living within one estate, as well as the spaces that separate each.
THE PARTS UNKNOWN To understand Fletcher is to embrace the artistic process in all of its inscrutable and addictive and voyeuristic glory. To accept the unknown and unknowable, and to acquiesce to the power that comes when an artist asks a question that leads his audience to a personal, and often unique, conclusion. Whether or not Fletcher shares the same perspective on any given work of art is largely irrelevant: where one quest for expression ends, another begins. This is a sentiment readily accepted by people who encounter his work—whether they are art novices who stumble onto him by chance, art collectors who seek him out, fellow creatives who encounter him in the field or friends who value his worldview.
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“He is the nicest, most delightful person,” says Joel Caldwell, a photographer who worked with Fletcher recently on a project for an Australian style brand. “It sounds stereotypical but you would never know he was an artist by his temperament. His talent, yes. His intuition, yes. His insight, yes. Which is remarkable—he’s most definitely exploring existential issues in his head constantly, but there’s no outward angst. Just someone who knows who he is.” Fletcher’s ability to balance the pressures of his work also testifies to the impact of place on his artistic development— if home is where the heart is, then the impact that New York and Charleston share on his soul is a defining dichotomy. New York is where he learned to think critically and resist categorization. It’s where he began to question what “art” means and to encourage others to do the same, rather than to wait for the answers to be revealed. And it is also where he learned to embrace contradictions, and to think bigger about his corner of the world and what it could be with a bit of creative self-reflection—in both the public and the private spheres.
He continues: “When I was in New York, my work focused on pop culture. I was doing stuff about [hair] weaves and gold teeth and rap culture. And I’ve kinda gotten away from it but I am looking to revisit some of that, too, in an abstract way. I miss the freedom to just make exciting and fun work when it strikes me. It’s not always about protests, not always about trauma, not always about the Black experience in the South. I’m an artist, not an activist. I participate in storytelling, delivering a narrative forward and hopefully adding to it. But that doesn’t apply only to heavy themes. There are a lot of things that I grew up with that I thought were cool in a lighter way, like candy paint and old Southern music and fast cars. Again, it’s about finding and delivering those joyous moments in my art.” “Now, I’m in a space where it’s also still about material, about my journey, about free expression, but also about the ways those experiences interact with the public space. And today, that’s what motivates me.” “Tomorrow, who knows...”
In Charleston, he learned to see his home from the inside out. And in the same way he dove headlong into mastering native materials and techniques—from welding iron to weaving marshgrass—Fletcher also embraces what he doesn’t already know, and inspiration he hasn’t yet tapped, to build the scaffolding required to prop up and present new ideas down the road. “I originally left Charleston to rebel against the traditional art and work that was made here, and the desire to reinvent my practice,” Fletcher says. “Now I’m heading toward a larger scale from here, I think. I definitely like work that engages the public space. That really mobilizes people.”
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UNTITLED 2019 38" X 50" A C R Y L I C O N PA P E R
EDEN 2019 A C R Y L I C O N PA P E R 72" X 120" SHOWN: PROMISELAND, AIKEN RHETT EXHIBITION GIBBES MUSEUM, PERMANENT COLLECTION
HOMESTEAD 2018 T I N R O O F, P I C K E T F E N C E , R E B A R 84" X 44" X 44"
GIFT FOR A GARDENER
WORK GARDEN
H A N D - C R A F T E D PA L M E T T O R O S E S
2019 2020
A N D PA L M E T T O L E AV E S , T I N R O O F,
PA L M E T T O F R O N D S , B R I C K C O L U M N S
WOODEN PICKET BASE 80" X 44"
PROMISELAND
PROMISELAND
AIKEN-RHETT EXHIBITION
AIKEN-RHETT EXHIBITION SECOND FLOOR PIAZZA
W O R K YA R D
UNTITLED 2020 DISCARDED PICKET FENCE, WOOD BASE PROMISELAND AIKEN-RHETT EXHIBITION
The artist’s materials.
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Fletcher in his home workspace.
UNTITLED 2020 DISCARDED PICKET FENCE, WOOD BASE PROMISELAND, AIKEN-RHETT EXHIBITION S TA I R H A L L
SHADOW 001 2018 A C R Y L I C O N PA P E R 38" X 50" P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N