Lavar Munroe

Background

Munroe was born in Nassau, Bahamas where he resided in the community of Grants Town until 2004. He grew up challenged with a lot of stigmas and stereotypes that were associated with the community that he lived in. Much of Munroe's understanding of such societal disparities was informed by his upbringing. This is evident in the disturbing, yet gorgeous and powerful works he creates. He relocated to the United States in 2004 to pursue tertiary level education. He has resided in the United States ever since.

Early life and career

In 2007, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design. He obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013. Munroe produces interdisciplinary artworks, and describes himself as a "trickster". He says he borrows from the narrative elements of illustration, theatre, and surrealist representations of ancient mythologies.

Munroe represented The Bahamas at the 2010 Liverpool Biennial. In 2013, he was selected as Editor’s Choice in issue no.105 of New American Painting. Munroe is an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and has been awarded prizes including a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painting and Sculpture Grant, a Fountainhead Residency and most recently a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He was selected as a finalist for the Chairo Painting Prize at Headlands Center for the Arts (2014). Lavar Munroe is a participant of the 56th Venice biennale (2015), in the International Art Exhibition titled All the World’s Futures, curated by the biennale's director, Okwui Enwezor.

Other awards and recognition include: The Kraus Family Foundation Fellowship, Beach Institute’s: Yes We Can Grant, The Mildred Suliburk Dennis Memorial Scholarship, Sam Fox Dean's Initiative Fund Grant, Mary Beth Hassan Fund Grant, The Central Bank of The Bahamas Fellowship, The National Endowment for the Arts Grant: Nassau Bahamas among others. Munroe has exhibited in institutions such as The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (St. Louis MO), the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (Nassau Bahamas), the Nasher Museum of Art (Durham North Carolina)., the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, and the SCAD Museum of Art His work is represented by Jack Bell Gallery based in London.

Munroe lives and works between Washington, DC and Nassau, Bahamas.

Works

Munroe employs a variety of mediums and is best known for his genius play on anthropology in relation to mythology. One of Munroes better known series of works titled "Where Heroes Lay" engaged a material exchange between the artist and a homeless person in downtown Washington DC. Munroe took on the role of a maid as he periodically removed soiled cardboard pieces from the homeless' sleeping quarters. As he removed dirty material, he replaced it with clean cardboard. By becoming a servant, Munroe's intention was to inconspicuously induct the disadvantage person as a Hero. Reeking of alcohol, cigarettes, piss, shit, and body odor, the work was presented as a suite of nine individual beds. Munroe's intention was also trickery as he presented The Hero’s soiled bedding material as a consumer good in the art-market, knowing that the objects would serve as weapons of critique and ridicule towards mainstream society."

Also of great significants are Munroe's monumental paintings and his intricately rendered works on paper. Such works explore his ongoing interest in the phenomena of the “human zoo” in place during colonial times, and its impact on the politics of representation in the present. Munroe equates these works to his entry into the American school system at age 21, where words such as exotic, islander and native became the norm when many Americans referred to him. These words were usually followed by bizarre questions regarding the way of life on the “islands”, which usually pointed to ideals that referenced behaviors of the savage. Though Munroe realized that the questions were more than likely said out of naivety and innocence,he began the task of trying to figure out the origins of such stereotypes in order to question certain prejudices associated with non-Western civilizations today.

Munroe’s painting practice incorporates elements of assemblage and collage, with composite pieces stitched and glued into a larger whole. Anthropomorphic figures that vacillate between the playful and macabre are the central motifs of his large-scale canvases. Often incorporating found and discarded materials, Munroe creates rich, painterly works that foreground his interest in history, anthropology and sociology.