Lavar Munroe is a Bahamian interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the human condition through a blend of immersive travel, cultural research, and material experimentation. Working across mixed media painting, sculpture, and drawing, Munroe operates in the spirit of an anthropologist—integrating into communities across Africa, including Tanzania, Senegal, and Zimbabwe, to engage firsthand with local rituals, ceremonies, and belief systems. These encounters, combined with his upbringing in the Bahamas, fuel a practice rooted in storytelling, folklore, and mythology. Munroe’s richly layered works—often described as hybrids between painting and relief sculpture—combine everyday and symbolic materials such as glass, synthetic flowers, feathers, and newspaper with acrylic, oil pastel, and house paint. These elements, many drawn from his childhood and travels, are woven into fantastical, dreamlike compositions that examine themes of home, utopia, escape, and belonging. His work challenges viewers to navigate multiple narratives that span personal memory, cultural identity, and collective imagination.
Munroe (b.1982, Nassau, Bahamas) earned his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design (2007) and MFA Studio Art at Washington University, St. Louis (2013). He also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2013) and was awarded a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2016), Benny Andrews Fellow from the MacDowell Colony (2016), and The Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity-University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC (2014). Recent solo exhibitions include Larkin Durey, London, UK (2024); moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL (2023); Jack Bell Gallery, London, England (2022, 2021, 2014); Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (2021); NOMAD, Brussels, Belgium (2017); Meadows Museum of Art, Shreveport, LA (2018); SCAD Museum of Art and Gutstein Gallery, Savannah, GA (2016); and The Central Bank, Nassau, Bahamas (2010). Notable group shows include The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI (2024), Kunstmuseum Basel, St. Alban-Graben, CH (2024); Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, SA (2022); The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (2022); Centre Pompidou Metz, FR (2022); Ichihara Lakeside Museum (2020); Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA (2020); Perez Art Museum Miami, FL (2019); Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK (2017); and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC (2015). Munroe will have a solo show with moniquemeloche in 2026.
His work is in the collections of The Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Fondation de France; Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève, Switzerland; The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, NY; The Central Bank of the Bahamas, Nassau, BA; The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, BA; and the MAXXI Museum, Rome, IT. He is the recipient of honors and awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts in honor of Robert De Niro, Sr., (2023), the Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalist (2021), Distinguished Alums Award from Sam Fox School of Art and Design from Washington University of St. Louis (2018), Postdoctoral Award for Research Excellence from the University of North Carolina (2015), Sam Fox Dean’s Initiative Fund (2013), Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2013), Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarship (2012), The Kraus Family Foundation Award (2011), and The National Endowment for the Arts Grant (2011). Munroe lives and works between Baltimore, MD, and the Bahamas.