Kevin McNamee-Tweed to Serve as Next Director of the Staniar Gallery The accomplished artist, curator and educator began his role on July 1.

By Brian Laubscher
August 14, 2024

Washington and Lee University named Kevin McNamee-Tweed as the next director of the Staniar Gallery. He officially began his duties on July 1.

“As I begin my new role at W&L, I am looking at the exhibition space as a site for convergence and community, for the exchange of energy, ideas and stories,” said McNamee-Tweed. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to bring artists, curators and scholars into conversation with the students, faculty and staff at W&L. There is so much happening on campus to which I’m eager to build bridges.”

During his extensive career, McNamee-Tweed has been involved in the arts in various capacities, including as a curator, artist, writer, educator, publisher and community organizer.

In 2012, he began exhibiting his own artwork and has mounted over 30 solo exhibitions internationally, along with participating in group shows throughout North America, Europe and Asia. His projects have been reviewed by Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Glasstire, LeMonde and Hyperallergic, among others.

While living in Austin, Texas, McNamee-Tweed joined Big Medium, a small nonprofit arts organization that grew rapidly and honed its mission to support artists through equitable and inclusive platforms to explore their practice and advance their careers. During his time with the organization, Big Medium developed a city-wide studio tour with 50,000 annual visitors, opened several hundred studios to local artists, established a fully funded residency program, programmed a statewide biennial, secured significant funding for the arts in Austin and mounted hundreds of exhibitions.

Most recently, McNamee-Tweed was the subject of solo museum exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art Chattanooga in Tennessee, and the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina, surveying his interdisciplinary practice which has brought together painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, woodworking, photography, handmade papers and artist books. His current projects also include an exhibition at the Museumhuis Lucien de Gheus in Poperinge, Belgium, and Kiaf SEOUL/Frieze Seoul in South Korea.

McNamee-Tweed has served as an artist-in-residence for The Range in Saguache, Colorado, the Montello Foundation in Montello, Nevada, and the Bay Space in Portland, Oregon, and he has been awarded several fellowships and prizes over the years. His work was named Best Solo Exhibition for 2012-13 by the Austin Critics Table, an organization that also presented him with Best Curation of Group Exhibition and Best Work of Art for 2013-14. He also received the Mildred Pelzer Prize in 2019 and was presented with the Ella Fountain Pratt Award in 2023.

McNamee-Tweed has also been published extensively, including monographs published by galleries or museums, contributions to scholarly compendiums, books of poetry and many self-published artist books. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University and a Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa, where he taught undergraduate studio art classes. While sustaining a studio practice in subsequent years, he lectured at and visited several universities, including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Warren Wilson College, Maharishi International University and the University of Tennessee.

“We are delighted to welcome Kevin McNamee-Tweed as the Director of Staniar Gallery,” said Andrea Lepage, Pamela H. Simpson Professor of Art History at W&L. “With extensive experience in gallery management and a unique perspective as a practicing artist, Kevin will enrich our programming and support a vibrant arts community on campus. We are excited to see how Kevin will advance Staniar’s mission by supporting the art history and studio art programs, the university and the surrounding community through exhibitions that inspire visitors to explore, analyze and contextualize art. With an exciting line-up of exhibitions planned for the 2024-25 academic year, we anticipate that Kevin’s leadership will build interdisciplinary connections and further enrich the university’s liberal arts mission.”

The Staniar Gallery is located on the second floor of Wilson Hall, in W&L’s Lenfest Center for the Arts. When the campus is open to the public, gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information about the 2024-25 exhibition and programming schedule, visit Staniar Gallery website.