Devil in a White City: A Painting Series by Lavar Munroe

Meadows Museum of Art, Centenary College of Louisiana
2018

Devil in a White City offers a succession of essays and images that thoroughly illuminate Munroe’s series of twelve large-scale paintings that bear the same title. “Though the term ‘Devil’ is affiliated with evil, I present my subjects as mere representations of those deemed to be devils in current world affairs as opposed to actual perpetrators of evil,” writes Munroe. “Today, subjects of evil point to many authority figures such as police, politicians, clergymen, and terrorists, as some of the major culprits of much malevolent activity. The over-arching narrative is the destruction and mayhem in the world today, a world cloaked and tarnished by evil and deceit.” Munroe’s paintings generate a lived narrative that is rich in symbolism and feels doctrinal, yet dreamlike. Each devil could be the insidious antagonist to an ancient, recently-unearthed text, or just as easily exist as “the bump-in-the-night” hiding under a bed in a child’s storybook.

 

Published by the Meadows Museum of Art, Shreveport, to accompany the 2018 solo exhibition.

 

55 pages.

ISBN: 978-1-7320925-0-1