Shepard Fairey left Charleston, South Carolina, after high school, but the artist still pops up in his hometown, even when he’s thousands of miles away. He appears at College Lodge, a dormitory at the College of Charleston. Outside Groucho’s Deli, a corner sandwich shop. And across from the Daily, a coffeehouse that sells honey lavender lattes and feta toast.
“Three murals are still up — two on King, one on Calhoun,” Shepard said of the public artworks he created for a 2014 show at the College of Charleston’s Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, six years after he designed the campaign-defining “Hope” poster of Barack Obama. “There still aren’t a ton of murals in Charleston because of the historical preservation, but I think the appreciation for street art is growing.”
In Charleston, a city known for its regal architecture and staid statues, his comparatively audacious pieces make some dissonant noise. As
