Piccolo Spoleto art show winners explore identity, connections

A smiling stranger in Togo. A Southern barn engulfed in flames. A collage built with cardboard and self-reflection.

This year’s top winners of the Piccolo Spoleto Juried Art Exhibition explore identity, storytelling and human connection in their own distinct ways.

For the 2025 show, currently on display at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park through June 8, artists entered paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints and photographs with the stipulations that the work was original, less than two years old, not made for a class and not generated by artificial intelligence.

This year’s juror was Zinnia Willits, executive director of the Southeastern Museums Conference in Atlanta. Willits, a past director of collections and operations at Charleston’s Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston,presented six awards: Best in Show, Second Prize, Third Prize, and three honorable mentions.

The Charleston City Paper recently stopped by the exhibit to learn more about the top three winning pieces and the stories behind them.

Best in Show: “Smile” by Ervin McDaniel

At 73, Ervin McDaniel joined a medical mission trip to Togo, West Africa, this year. After doctors diagnosed patients, his job was to explain how to use their prescriptions.

The woman in the winning photo came to McDaniel looking sad. Through a translator, he said he asked her what was wrong. She explained her concern: she was feeling sick and wanted to get better.

Citizens of Togo rarely receive medical care, and when they do, it’s often confusing to them.

“She probably hadn’t seen a doctor in years,” McDaniel said. “She just didn’t know.”

He explained that her health issues were not serious and that she would find relief soon with her medications.

“I was talking to her through a translator, saying, ‘Tell her to smile. She has a nice face. She should smile. Everything will be OK,’” said McDaniel. “Her whole tone sort of changed.”

Photography is a serious hobby for McDaniel. A retired Baltimore city planner who retired to Ladson, he bought his first camera in 1972 and still prefers shooting in black and white.

People are usually the subject of his work, and he tries to capture them in the best light possible. His camera is almost always with him for moments like these. “We see a lot of negative images of folks,” said McDaniel. “I just want to show a good part of the person.”

McDaniel believes his talent comes with a responsibility.

“To whom much is given, much is required,” he said.

For most of his life, McDaniel has been involved in community outreach through his church. He’s been to Haiti nine times and to Togo twice. Each time, he brings photos of people from his previous trips and tries to find them.

Most subjects have to worry about basic needs and would otherwise never see a photo of themselves, so they’re grateful to receive his work.

“It’s small to me, but to other folks, it’s something big,” said McDaniel. He noted that the areas he goes to are very impoverished, so “people may never see or have an actual photograph of themselves.”

He’s submitted a photo to the Juried Art Exhibition every year since 2019, and this is the first year he’s won.

“Just being a part of the show is great. Anything else is like icing on the cake,” McDaniel said. “It was a high honor for my piece to be the best in show.”

McDaniel’s work can also be found at the International African American Museum and on his website.

Second: “Barn Burning” by Hampton Watts

Hampton Watts, a 32-year-old artist and fine art coach at the Savannah College of Art and Design, loves Southern storytelling.

“I think the South has a ton of rich narrative tradition — think Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, kind of more contemporary, Wendell Berry,” he said in a recent interview. “And yet, at the same time, I don’t think there’s so much of a Southern Gothic visual tradition.”

That’s where Watts’ paintings come in — they capture everything gloomy, beautiful and broken about the region on canvas.

The winning piece is inspired by a scene in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, where the body of a family’s matriarch is set on fire in a neighbor’s barn after a long journey to transport it for burial. As three characters sleep, the flames illuminate their faces.

“I just found that scene really interesting,” said Watts. “I think we’re all kind of asleep to certain things. We’re willfully blind to the absurdity of our own lives.”

Watts also draws parallels between the scene and biblical stories.

“I was painting this around Easter time, and I think of the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane falling asleep,” he said.

The Juried Art Exhibition typically accepts work only from South Carolina residents. But this year, artists in states impacted by Hurricane Helene were allowed to enter.

The award, and even the ability to participate, is special to Watts, a Georgia resident who has long supported the City Gallery. He was raised in Mount Pleasant, just across the harbor from Charleston’s historic peninsula, and said winning a prize like that in his hometown makes the recognition even more meaningful.

Rather than disperse his art across the country, Watts said he prefers to submit to Southern exhibitions whose audiences better understand the message.

His work can be found on Instagram, which he said helps connect him with viewers and fellow artists by offering a window into his thought process.

Third: “Life Witness – What’s your Story?” by Christine Johnson

Summerville resident Christine Johnson left a 20-year career in human resources last year to pursue art full time.

She now focuses on mixed media, layering color, pattern and texture in her work.

Johnson created the black-and-white foundation of the winning piece in the early 2000s, back when she was intimidated by color.

She completed the work more recently, adding blue acrylic, recycled cardboard pieces and metallics. It represents her own life perspective.

Over the years, she’s refined herself, reaching what she describes as self-actualization. Her art has evolved with her — becoming brighter, more abstract and experimental.

Its impact transcends her own life.

“We all have a story, and they’re all different,” said Johnson. “My art, it’s an invitation to everyone to make inner peace a priority.”

Beyond visual art, she leads multi-sensory workshops and recently published Art Journey to Inner Peace, a coffee table book she’s expanding into a community-building curriculum.