Holding Space: Anina Major and Lavar Munroe
Larkin Durey is delighted to present an exhibition exploring points of connection in the work of Bahamian artists Anina Major and Lavar Munroe.
Drawing on their separate, formative years in Nassau, Bahamas and more recent roots in the USA, Major and Munroe’s work is infused with ideas of home, migration, identity and heritage; exploring what it means to belong and how making can carry stories forward, honoring ancestral and cultural knowledge in new forms. Tapping into a wealth of research spanning first-hand experience of tribal ceremonies to personal, family artefacts and public archives, the work shares an interest in kinship and reclaiming the fractured narratives underpinning the Black Caribbean and African experience. Although specialising in different mediums, both artists range freely within their chosen materials, expanding the boundaries of painting, sculpture and installation, claiming space on their own terms.
Working from her studio in New York state, Anina Major examines questions of nostalgia and identity via the Bahamian tradition of straw weaving, a craft practiced by female members of her own family, particularly her grandmother. Undervalued within Bahamian culture, where straw baskets and figures are sold mainly to tourists, Major’s sculptures are a means to preserve and honour her family history and that of the enslaved peoples who brought the technique of weaving from Africa to the Caribbean. As many inhabitants from island nations are forced to migrate to find work and opportunities, the creation of vessels is also a way for the artist to both connect with home while living elsewhere, and to foster a sense of belonging within her new surroundings. Major holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including the Armory Show 2024 Pommery Prize, the 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship, and the EKWC, Centre-of-Excellence for Ceramics international artist-in-residency. Her work is included in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC; the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Carnegie Museum of Art; and Perez Art Museum Miami, among others.
Lavar Munroe works across painting, sculpture and drawing with the spirit of an anthropologist, studying the human condition via storytelling, folklore, fable and community. Over the past decade, Munroe has travelled to meet local peoples in Tanzania, Senegal and Zimbabwe experiencing first-hand the rituals and traditions that underpin their belief systems and remind him of his own upbringing in the Bahamas. By building richly layered paintings from a wide range of ephemera, Munroe honours the intimate ceremonies he has witnessed and illuminates the threads weaving people together across culture, time and geography. Munroe is based in Nassau, Bahamas and Baltimore, USA. He holds an MFA from Washington University and was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award and a 2023 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, underwritten by Robert De Niro. His work is in the collections of The Baltimore Museum of Art, USA; Studio Museum of Harlem, New York; the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau; and the MAXXI Museum, Rome, Italy.
