2024 Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Arts Awards Announced

The Sam Fox School announced Marie Bannerot McInerney, MFA ’12; Lavar Munroe, MFA ’13; and Amy Usdin, BFA ’82, are winners of the 2024 Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Awards. The awards are open to BFA and MFA alumni of the Sam Fox School at Washington University working in sculpture, painting, printmaking, photography, and/or time-based media. Winners, chosen by a faculty and alumni jury, each receive $25,000 to advance their artistic practice.

Marie Bannerot McInerney is a multidisciplinary studio artist and educator. Her site-responsive installations and discrete works in concrete, silk, handmade paper, and canvas consider human agency within the framework of ecological systems, mystical thinking, and natural phenomena. She has exhibited across the U.S. as well as in China and Germany. McInerney believes there is great power in collaboration and has served as co-director and co-curator in two curatorial collaboratives: Kansas City’s PLUG Projects and St. Louis’ Independent Art Market. Her immersive solo exhibition Trace Me Back closes its 10-month run at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art this month. She currently sits on the board for Hand Papermaking Magazine and serves as professor in the fiber department at the Kansas City Art Institute.

McInerney creates site-specific and site-responsive installations as well as discrete works from handmade paper, silk, cement, ceramic, and metal leaf combined with sound, light, and elements of the natural world that consider our position within larger structures to imagine how to contend with an uncertain future. The award will support her ongoing practice, mainly with the goals to self-publish and mail a catalog of recent work to institutions, curators, and gallerists; purchase supplies to continue ongoing work; and support the purchase of a used utility vehicle for her site-specific work.

Lavar Munroe is a Bahamian interdisciplinary artist working primarily in mixed media painting, cardboard sculpture, and drawings. His work examines themes present in folklore, fables and historic films that draw comparisons between his upbringing in the Bahamas and travels to various countries in Africa. Addressing multiple narratives that span personal, historical and mythological references, Munroe’s work presents conflicts between a desire to escape and the longing for home while challenging us to journey beyond the familiar. Described as a hybrid medium between painting and relief sculpture, Munroe’s work often incorporates sentimental objects collected and gifted from his family along with objects found during his travels. His work focuses on themes such as journey, utopia, magic, love and the celebration of escape through fantastical and dreamlike imagery. He has exhibited work globally, including at the Venice Biennale, the National Gallery of the Bahamas, and the Museum of the African Diaspora. He is a 2023 recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.

With this award, Munroe will continue to examine and explore facets of the Zimbabwean culture to further build on his research with the goal of developing a robust anthropologic diary of large-scale paintings. The award enables him to revisit Zimbabwe and access tribal communities, museums, and other educational facilities for his research.

Amy Usdin’s work is sculptural needle-weaving and knotting of abstract physical and psychological landscapes onto aging fiber artifacts. Her work has been shown in gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the U.S., included in physical and published surveys representing the diversity and breadth of contemporary craft and fiber art. She has received numerous awards and grants, and participated in residencies throughout the U.S. and in Iceland.

Usdin is developing a new body of net sculptures of greater scale, expression, and dimension by incorporating looms with this laborious activity to conceive and develop exhibitions on a grander scale than currently practical. This award will provide essential material support through the purchase of fibers and nets, the fabrication of armatures to support a series of large free-standing floor pieces, and the purchase of ancillary studio equipment essential for ergonomic and efficient weaving, in addition to access to a TC2 digital jacquard loom. It will fund costs associated with exhibiting large-scale work including packing, shipping, installation, and professional photography, as well as travel for exhibitions and residencies.

Nancy Stone, BFA ’70, and Lawrence DeGuire, BFA ’70, met as undergraduate students at WashU. The husband-and-wife duo, who were married at Graham Chapel on campus, began their artistic collaboration in 1972. They enjoyed a long career as Stone & DeGuire, exhibiting widely along the West Coast. The annual awards honor that legacy while allowing recent and mid-career alumni to continue pushing forward their unique artistic practices. Learn more about the awardees and past recipients here.