He is a graduate in the class of 1965 of Edmunds High School (now Sumter High School), Sumter, S. C. In 1965, he attended Clemson University in South Carolina and pursued a bachelor's degree in architecture, which turned into a zoology degree.
In 2010, a public park called Swan Lake Iris Gardens in Sumter, South Carolina, commissioned Grainger Mckoy to create an outdoor installation.
"Recovery" is a stainless steel statue representing the wing of a pintail duck in flight.
[2] From September 2011 through January 2012, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta housed a Grainger McKoy exhibit, showcasing over 30 of his sculptures and drawings.
The museum said that McKoy's sculptures "grip the observant viewer with trompe l’oeil illusion, while rejecting the confounding trickery often implicit in that 'trick of the eye' style.