Education
2009 M.A., Painting, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom 2007 B.A., Mixed Media Fine Art, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom
Career
Mandy El-Sayegh (b.1985, Malaysia Lives and works in London, UK SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2024 Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (forthcoming) 2023 Disfigurations: Kader Attia & Mandy El-Sayegh, Lehmann Maupin, London, United Kingdom Prix Jean-Francois Prat, Paris, France Interiors, Thaddeus Ropac, London, United Kingdom The Amateur, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY Enfleshing, Overbeck-Gesellschaft – Kunstverein Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany In Session, Tichy Ocean Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland 2022 Mandy El-Sayegh and Keunmin Lee: Recombinant, Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea Mandy El-Sayegh: Units of Measure, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA Still, evident (notes on dreams), Lehmann Maupin, Palm Beach, FL 2021 Figure One, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France Protective Inscriptions, Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea Mandy El-Sayegh & Lee Bul: Recombinance, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY 2020 your words will be used against us, Harlesden High Street, London, United Kingdom 2019 Mandy El-Sayegh: The Amateur and Problems with Metaphor, Home Works 8: A Forum on Cultural Practices, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon Mandy El-Sayegh: White Grounds, Bétonsalon, Paris, France Dispersal, Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong Cite Your Sources, Chisenhale Gallery, London, United Kingdom 2018 MUTATIONS IN BLUE, WHITE AND RED, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY assembled at Tell el Ajjul, The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, Mexico 2017 Figured Ground: Meshworks, Carl Kostyál, London, United Kingdom 2016 Taking Part, Galerie Mihai Nicodim, Bucharest, Romania This is a sign, Carlos/Ishikawa, London, United Kingdom SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2023 Women Defining Women in Contemporary Art of the Middle East and Beyond, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA 2022 Biennale Matter of Art, Prague, Czechia The Drawing Centre Show, Le Consortium, Dijon, France Saturation: Abstract Expressions 1960–2022, Thaddeus Ropac, Pantin, France Time, and time again – Works from the Vermeire-Notebaert collection, Museum Dhondt- Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium British Art Show 9, Hayward Gallery Touring, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom; Plymouth, United Kingdom Two Day Sound System, Harlesden High Street, London, United Kingdom 2021 Body Topographies, Lehmann Maupin, London, United Kingdom Drawing Biennial, Drawing Room, London, United Kingdom When I Count, There Are Only You..., Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates 2020 Words at an Exhibition - an exhibition in ten chapters and five poems, Busan Biennale, Busan, South Korea A Focus on Painting, Thaddaeus Ropac, London, United Kingdom Our ashes make great fertilizer, PUBLIC Gallery, London, United Kingdom Inside Out: The Body Politic – McArthur Binion, Mandy El-Sayegh, Lee Bul and Tony Oursler, Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea 2019 Searching the Sky for Rain, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY Ecologies of Darkness, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany 2018 Deterioro y Poder, Instituto de Vision, Bogotá, Colombia 2017 Lessons in Agronomy, Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China Boundary Work, Sharjah Biennial 13: Tamawuj, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates 2016 For Pete’s Sake, Carl Kostyál, Stockholm, Sweden 2011 Elizabeth House, Elizabeth House, London, United Kingdom Responsive Eye, London Gallery West, London, United Kingdom RCA Painting Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom 2010 RCA Panting Interim Show, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
Awards career
2023 Award Nomination, Prix Jean-Francois Prat 2022 40 under 40: Asia Pacific, Apollo Magazine 2017 Shortlist, Max Mara Art Prize for Women in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery
Mandy El-Sayegh’s (b. 1985, Malaysia, lives and works in London, United Kingdom) highly process-driven practice is rooted in an exploration of material and language. Executed in a wide range of media, including densely layered paintings, sculpture, installation, diagrams, and sound and video, El-Sayegh’s work investigates the formation and break-down of systems of order, be they bodily, linguistic, or political. She is particularly interested in exploring the Part-Whole relationship–how something significant yet unpremeditated emerges and comes into being through various smaller, micro-interactions or repetitions. She physically demonstrates this by collaging disparate fragments, text, and found imagery, and layering them with materials like latex, rubber, and clay that mimic organic matter. Through simple, repetitive patterns such as a hand-painted grid or geometric molds, formal and narrative synthesis occurs that is not consciously intended or anticipated. El-Sayegh likens her exploratory, observational process to the occurrence of contemporary social and political events, which unfold in highly chaotic and often disturbing ways. Justifications or explanations for such events typically appear after the fact; they are devised in an effort to impose order on an inherently subjective and incomplete set of social, cultural, and political processes. The artist’s work aims to remove the veil of these superimposed structures and reveal the intricacies of growth and decay as they happen in real time. El-Sayegh is interested in the observation of process (of science and of self) and she believes that through such observation, one can better understand how the social and political phenomena that shape our world exist in a constant state of flux. (Source = Lehmann Maupin)