Lavar Munroe

Region: MFA Annual

Website: http://www.lavar-munroe.com

City / State: germantown, MD

My artistic goal is to explore, address, and re-narrate stereotypes assigned to impoverished people in the ghetto. My work refers to the notions of life, death, and the animal. I create a mythology that celebrates the state-of-being of poverty. Taking on the role of devil’s advocate, I combine negative stereotypes and misconceptions to create a personal mythology. I strive to uplift the status of the disadvantaged being through man-animal hybrids, artifacts, and constructed settings.

The nucleus of my work is personal experience that contains potent metaphor and meaning. I sweep streets and thrift stores for material that has retained a residue of and, in many ways, conjures the spirit of a people. These places are, in a sense, saviors of the impoverished and I honor the materials claimed from them. They give my art a soul, a sense of purpose and belonging, and a value much greater than intended in their discarded forms.