Awareness post Q2

Lavar Munroe

He is a Bahamian interdisciplinary artist who's work consists mostly of mixed moda painting, cardboard sculpture, and drawings. His work souronding themes of folklore, fables and historic films that draw comparisons between his upbringing in the Bahamas and travels to africa. His work also address multiple narratives and deals with conflicts between a longing for home and a desire to escape. Munroe’s work frequently uses sentimental objects collected and gifted.

Credentials, Awards, Features

Lavar Munroe (b. 1982, Nassau, Bahamas) earned his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007 and his MFA from Washington University in 2013. In 2014, Munroe was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was included in Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of The Swamp, the New Orleans triennial curated by Trevor Schoonmaker, and the 12th Dakar Biennale, curated by Simon Njami, in Senegal. In 2015, Munroe's work was featured in All the World's Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor, as part of the 56th Venice Biennale. His work has been included in museums such as the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham; Perez Art Museum, Miami; National Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau; MAXXI Museum of Art, Rome; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco; Virginia Museum of Modern Art, Virginia Beach; Ichihara Lakeside Museum Ichihara, Japan; and The Drawing Center, New York. Munroe was awarded residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, MacDowell Colony, the Headlands Center for the Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Thread: Artist Residency & Cultural Center (a project of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation), a was recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2013). He was an inaugural Artists in Residence at the Norton Museum of Art (2020) and was named a Guggenheim Fellow (2023). His work was most recently included in exhibitions at The Centre Pompidou-Metz (France) , The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (South Africa) and a solo exhibition in Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago and Jack Bell Gallery in London, both in 2023. Lavar Munroe lives and works between Baltimore, Maryland and Nassau, Bahamas.

Reactions

So Silent Your Whisper

Fringed newspaper, acrylic, spray paint, airbrush, chicken wings with feathers, oil pastel, hair braid, shoe lace with beads, glitter, rhinestones, thumb tacks, passport book cover, collage, and silk flower with plastic insect on canvas

70'' x 60''

2024

I really like this piece. The use of color and mixed media is what really stands out me. Also all of the small details are really cool and It feels like it could easily get to a point where it is just to much but Munroe makes all the diffrent part work well together. I work with figures a lot in my work but I have really only done a two person composition once so if i try that again this could be helpful to look at for inspiration. Also the background in the piece is more abstract then like a setting and if I wanted to explore that this is a good thing to look at how another artist resolved their background abstractly. I dont know if I would do this but I like how the paint and mixed media look together.

Lift Up Mine Eyes, Unto the Hills

Acrylic, latex house paint, airbrush, pencil, marker, chalk, oil pastels, printed and painted fabric, feathers, ribbon, staples, tacks, fringed newspaper, and found photos on canvas

126in x 90in

2024

I like this one too. I think that in this one I can take from how contrast was used. Each person is distinct which is thanks to the colors and patterns. I like how each figure is unified through the paper firing and the color blue yet each one is individual and does not clash. I really love the color scheme(might have to use it soon). Composition wise your eye flows the curved line from the sword and the cut from the ground and sky adds some really nice depth also it is on a nice diagonal. Also the string connecting all of them is a cool detail. I like how pattern is use in this and I need to implement more patter in my work. I like how expressive it is. I think I can take a lot away from this piece.

Links

Website link: https://lavar-munroe.com/home.html

The cv is like 7pages so here is the link: https://img-cache.oppcdn.com/fixed/42769/assets/4274BlTqEpl00CDt.pdf