Events

Visual Arts Department alumni Lainey Davidson ('17), Kevin Hopkins ('18), and Benjamin Merritt ('15) will return to campus for a special guest panel in honor of the school's 25th Anniversary! They will share reflections on their experience as artists both during and after their time at the Governor's School, answer audience questions, and more!

This event is free and open to the public.

Lainey Davidson is an artist, sculptor, and filmmaker. She graduated from the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities in 2017 with a concentration in animation. Her film, ‘Zero’, won Best Student Film at Austin Film Festival and Best Story at Teen Animation Festival International. Her studies continued at Ringling College of Art and Design where she earned a BFA in Computer Animation. Her thesis film, ‘Legend Has It’, achieved international recognition, earning numerous awards and screening at over 20 film festivals worldwide. Lainey's passion for narrative extends beyond animation into the realm of toys and play. Her career has seen her collaborate with industry giants such as Hasbro, Hallmark Cards, and Moose Toys, contributing to brands including Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, My Little Pony, Bluey, Transformers, Power Rangers, and Fortnite. Lainey continues to sculpt, paint, and experiment in her own artistic practice. She has a particular interest in combining tech like 3D printing with traditional art making techniques.

Kevin Hopkins is a painter based in Kansas City, Missouri. Kevin earned his BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2023. During his undergraduate study, he was recognized internationally as a 2020, 2021, and 2022 Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grantee and nationally as a 2021 AXA Art Prize finalist. Currently, Hopkins’ work celebrates community and collaboration by asking himself and others to embrace conjured personas to navigate imagined spaces and recast scenes from television shows and movies.

Benjamin Merritt is a text-based artist working in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He recently completed residencies at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis, Spudnik Press in Chicago, the Anderson Center in Red Wing, MN and the Ox-Bow School of Art in Saugatuck, MI. In 2021 he was awarded a MN State Arts Board grant to fund his debut solo exhibition, "A Feather Plucked From its Bird," held at Dreamsong in Minneapolis, MN in 2022. His ongoing body of work is a series of drawings, monoprints, and sculptural forms. The work combines abstraction with handwritten text that draws from how meaning is derived from and created by language.