Mark Manders expands his seminal ‘Self-Portrait as a Building’ project with multiple new rooms for his inaugural exhibition with the gallery. Installations referencing domestic spaces, including a bathroom, bedroom and studio, take their place alongside monumental and domestic-scale painted bronzes, mixed-media sculptures, objects, furniture and two-dimensional works. This large-scale exhibition draws together the multiple strands of practice to reveal the depth and breadth of his oeuvre.

Manders has been assembling his ‘Self-Portrait as a Building’ for almost forty years. The underlying concepts are constructed identity and the mind as a physical structure, analogous to a house or building. Every ‘room’ within the imaginary edifice — translated into the physical gallery spacese — represents a different aspect of Manders’ character or an autobiographical experience. Here, it is important to note that there are two Mark Manders: the person and the persona, the latter of whom is a fictional construct. The building is never finished; it expands ad infinitum. The rooms are furnished and filled with objects. Every element is a unique artwork, painstakingly crafted by the artist.

Mark Manders’ work reflects his ongoing exploration of identity, materiality and illusion, language and structure, but also time. While many sculptures resemble archaeological finds, others reference modernism and twentieth-century design: a dissonance that transports us backwards and forwards through the centuries. His works can be seen as spatial materialisations of inner — sometimes abstract — thoughts, feelings and emotions. References to art history, recurring motifs and the reconfiguration of previous works, all add to the sense of continuity and perpetual transformation in his oeuvre.