Fletcher Williams III (b. 1987, North Charleston, South Carolina) is an artist working in assemblage, installation, and object-making. He received his BFA from The Cooper Union in New York in 2010 and returned to Charleston in 2013, where he lives and works. His work is held in the permanent collections of the International African American Museum, the Gibbes Museum of Art, Davidson College, the South Carolina Aeronautical Training Center, the 701 Center for Contemporary Art Public Art Trail, and the International Slavery Museum Liverpool.

Though Williams spent formative years in New York, Charleston remains the primary influence on his practice. The city’s layered history, architecture, craft traditions, historic preservation efforts, and devotion to storytelling revealed to him the power of place, material, and object as bearers of meaning. It affirmed his freedom and the necessity of authoring personal and collective narratives, rituals, and mythology through sculpture and immersive installations.

Williams gives this mythology physical form through materials common to the Lowcountry—rusted tin, wood, steel, sweetgrass, palmetto fronds, fencing, and stained glass—which he gathers over time from demolition sites, abandoned structures, and chance encounters. His sculptures and installations often take the form of meticulously designed vessels, altars, and devotional objects. Hand-woven palmetto roses, a craft Williams has incorporated into his practice since 2015, recur throughout the work— from small handheld objects to larger sculptures composed of hundreds or thousands of the intricately folded flowers. Fences, in particular, are reimagined throughout his work to echo the human body or evoke feelings of privacy and restriction. As both literal and symbolic structures, fences reflect the South’s devotion to territory and property and the mythology of the American dream, while also pointing to the ways boundaries have historically defined belonging. This theme is reflected in the many sculptures and works on paper that appear as portals, gateways, or cages. He often incorporates field recordings he gathers himself—local wildlife, shopkeeper bells, car bass vibrations, or the clattering of a stick along a wooden or chainlink fence—allowing his sculpture and installations to unfold through both material and sensory experience as illustrated in his 2023 exhibition When It Rains It Shines. Within these environments, memory and landscape collapse into one another, creating spaces that approach a kind of Southern surrealism—where familiar elements of the Lowcountry become slightly estranged, symbolic, and dreamlike.

While deeply rooted in place, Williams’s work is ultimately driven by an interest in ritual, material transformation, and myth—forces that guide his practice toward new forms and combinations. Treating process and making as ceremonial acts, he draws on traditions of Southern ingenuity and resourcefulness—often described through the philosophy of “using the whole hog”—repurposing every part and characteristic of a material so that objects designed for specific uses take on new decorative, symbolic, and devotional roles. Through these transformations, Williams constructs a mythic visual language of place in which past and present, utility and ornament, architecture and relic coexist in sculptures and installations that both reflect and expand the evolving traditions of Southern art.

Williams has presented solo exhibitions, including When It Rains It Shines (International African American Museum, 2023), Promise Land (Historic Charleston Foundation Aiken-Rhett House, 2020), and Traces (701 Center for Contemporary Art, 2018). The work has also been included in exhibitions at institutions such as The Mint Museum, MoCADA, the Caribbean Cultural Center, and the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. Williams is a 2021 South Arts Southern Prize State Fellow and has received grants from Art Matters Foundation, The Dean Collection, and the Griffith-Reyburn Artist of the Lowcountry Grant.

Education
The Cooper Union: For The Advancement of Science & Art, New York, N.Y. | BFA 2010

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2023 When It Rains It Shines, International African American Museum, Charleston S.C.
2020 Promise Land, Historic Charleston Foundation Aiken-Rhett House, Charleston, S.C.
2018 Traces, 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Columbia, S.C.
2017 City Block, Reynolds Ave Historic Fire Station, North Charleston, S.C.
2016 Beyond The Rainbow, Cannon Street Arts Center, Charleston, S.C.
2015 Souvenir, Spring St. Alternative Gallery, Charleston, S.C.
2011 Coruscus - Intro to the Embellishments, Rivington Design House, New York, N.Y.
2011 Scripture & Gold, Coming St. Alternative Gallery, Charleston, S.C.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2021 South Arts Grantee Traveling Exhibition
2020 Still Contemporary, Hodges Taylor Gallery, Charlotte, N.C.
2020 Coined in the South, The Mint Museum Uptown, Charlotte, N.C.
2019 Nature Nurture, TRAX / Jones Carter Galleries, Lake City, S.C.
2017 Posing Possibilities, City Gallery, Charleston, S.C.
2016 With Liberty and (In)justice for all?, Gateway Project Spaces, Newark, N.J.
2016 OFF WHITE, MoCada, Brooklyn, N.Y.
2016 Route to Resettlement, Mann-Simon Site, Columbia, S.C.
2015 Southern Rhythms, McKissick Museum, Columbia, S.C.
2015 San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, C.A.
2012 H(A)UNTED, The Caribbean Cultural Center, New York, N.Y.
2012 Small Works, 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, N.Y. 2012
2010 Powers That Be, The Cooper Union, New York, N.Y.

Permanent Collections

2025 International Slavery Museum Liverpool
2023 International African American Museum, Charleston S.C.
2021 South Carolina Aeronautical Training Center, Charleston, S.C.
2021 701 CCA, Mill District Public Art Trail, Columbia S.C.
2020 Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, S.C.
2020 Davidson College, Davidson, N.C.

Residency

2019 Gibbes Museum of Art - Visiting Artist Residency, Charleston, S.C.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

2021 South Arts Southern Prize State Fellow
2018 Griffith-Reyburn Artist of the Lowcountry Grant
2018 The Dean Collection 20 St(art)-Ups Grant
2015 Art Matters Foundation Grant

Special Projects

2025 Jerry Siegel: At This Moment Portraits of South Carolina Artists, GCMA, Greenville, S.C.
2023 Public Art Installation (Permanent) - International African American Museum, Charleston, S.C.
2022 Spoleto Festival USA Bank of America Chamber Music Backdrop at The Dock St. Theatre - Charleston, S.C.
2021 Book Cover Art for Marlanda Dekin’s Debut Collection of Poetry: Thresh & Hold
2021 Public Art Installation (Permanent) - 701 CCA Mill District Public Art Trail, Columbia S.C.
2019 Artwork Installation and Set Decoration - The Underground Railroad (Amazon Prime Series), Savannah, G.A
.
2018 Public Art Installation - Multi-site NOTICE Sign Revision, Charleston, S.C.


Reviews and Interviews

2023 - Charleston Library Society: Fletcher Williams III talks art as storytelling with CLS Editorial Director Jessica Mischner
2023 - Effin B Radio - A convo with the venerable Lindsay Collins | Episode 264: When It Rains, It Shines with Fletcher Williams III LISTEN
2022 - Burnaway Magazine - In the studio with Fletcher Williams IIIby JD Ellison
2020 - Veranda - Columnist Joy Moyler Sits Down with Artist Fletcher Williams III to Discuss the Importance of Socially Engaged Art
2020 - Post & Courier - Charleston Soul-Searchers: Now is the time to listen to your artists READ
2020 - Post & Courier - Review: For artist Fletcher Williams III, a white picket fence is a national divide READ READ
2019 - Charleston City Paper - Fletcher Williams has an idea to give palmetto rose artisans the recognition they deserve READ
2019 - Charleston City Paper - Fletcher Williams III, Coastal Community Foundation’s Artist of the Year debuts “Homestead”, January
2018 - The Chronicle - Fletcher Williams Completes Latest Sculpture
2018 - Tableaux Guide - Charleston An Insider’s Guide READ
2018 - Wall Street Journal - America’s Art Scenes Off the Beaten Track: Beyond New York and London
2017 - Charleston City Paper - Vice’s Amuse highlights 10 S.C. artists to watch including three from Charleston
2017 - Art Mag - 10 Artists Shaping the Arts in Charleston, P.13
2017 - BOMB Magazine - A Tale of Two Charlestons, Exhibition Review
2017 - VICE - AMUSE - 10 South Carolina Artists You Need to Know
2017 - North Charleston Magazine - N. Charleston Arts Fest features hometown artist Fletcher Williams III
2017 - Charleston City Paper - Fletcher Williams III’s City Block Delves Deeper Into His Own Life
2017 - Post & Courier - North Charleston Arts Fest Concentrates Bounty Into Five Full Days
2016 - New York Times - What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week
2016 - Charleston Magazine - Weaving Past & Present
2015 - Charleston City Paper - Is Charleston Listening?
2015 - CBC Radio - Episode Three: The Riches of Teeth
2015 - Post & Courier - Crime, Culture, Race, and History.
2013 - HYCIDE Magazine - Review of new works examining Hip-Hop culture
2012 - Art Voices Magazine - H(A)UNTED

Bibliography

2025 Jerry Siegel: At This Moment Portraits of South Carolina Artists
2022 Fletcher Williams III, Westward, Thresh & Hold by Marlanda Dekine, Hub City Press, 2022, Front Cover
2021 Urban Electric. June 2021 Catalog. The Current, Vol. 3 ”Portrait of an Artist as a Man” p. 202-215. READ
2019 Fletcher Williams III. Homestead, 2016. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. “Predatory Inclusion”. N+1. No. 35 Savior Complex. 2019, p. 92
2016 Rowell, Charles Henry. 2016. An interview with Fletcher Williams III. Callaloo Journal. Volume 39.4: 788-796 READ
2012 Fletcher Williams III. Essay and Artworks. The Liberator Magazine 2012. Issue 26. p. 70-74