Mandy El-Sayegh: Figure, Field, Grid

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen presents Figure, Field, Grid by artist Mandy El-Sayegh. This will be the first exhibition in the museum’s new Depot Solo series. El-Sayegh (b. 1985, Malaysia) is known for her complex, layered approach to painting, installation, and performance. For her first solo exhibition in the Netherlands, she transforms a gallery space in the Depot into an immersive environment. The exhibition features new works inspired by pieces from the museum’s collection alongside a range of materials—from newspaper clippings to silkscreens, and her father’s Arabic calligraphy.

Mandy El-Sayegh works across disciplines, seamlessly merging painting, collage, installation, video, and performance. Her practice brings together a rich array of visual and textual materials: fragments of newspapers and advertisements, anatomy books, scientific diagrams, silkscreen layers, hand-painted grids, sheets of latex, and her father’s Arabic calligraphy. These elements are layered into complex compositions that reflect on how information is categorized, circulated, and interpreted. Through this process, she examines the instability of meaning and the ways in which subjectivity is constantly shaped by context. The myriad of source materials is woven into her larger compositions, where a recurring motif, the grid, appears both in her paintings and in the layout of the exhibition—a concept echoed in the title Figure, Field, Grid. 

A defining aspect of her practice is what El-Sayegh calls “quasi-archives,” drawing on systems of classification and historical record while simultaneously subverting their legibility. Through these quasi-archives, she investigates how narratives are constructed, who constructs them, and what is left out. Her method is akin to that of an archaeologist—excavating, unravelling, and reassembling. By recontextualizing fragments of text, image, and found material, she exposes the layered and often contradictory ways meaning is produced, reflecting the complexity of the systems we inhabit. 

Responding to the Depot’s museological principle of making visible what is often hidden in its storage, El-Sayegh lays bare her artistic process by creating an environment where language, material, and meaning are broken down and rebuilt layer by layer. The result is a space that functions both as an exhibition and laboratory: fragmentary, intimate, and embodied at once.   

The exhibition Mandy El-Sayegh: Figure, Field, Grid marks the launch of Depot Solo, a new multi-year series at the Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Supported by Ammodo Art, the series offers a platform for artists who have not previously had a solo exhibition in the Netherlands to create site-specific installations. Depot Solo provides an analogue counterpoint to the growing popularity of digital immersive environments. 

Mandy El-Sayegh’s exhibition Figure, Field, Grid is curated by Amira Gad, curator of modern and contemporary art at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. 

Depot Solo series is generously supported by Ammodo Art. For more information and tickets, visit here.

About the artist 
Mandy El-Sayegh (b. 1985, Malaysia) lives and works in London. Her first institutional solo exhibition, Cite Your Sources, was created for Chisenhale Gallery and took place in London in 2019. Since then, her work has been shown internationally at venues including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Sursock Museum in Beirut. Two of her works—Net-Grid (my dad knows nothing) (2020) and Figured Ground (2020)—were acquired by Tate Modern in 2022 for its permanent collection.  

About Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is an art museum in Rotterdam with a world-class collection of old masters, modern and contemporary art, applied arts, and design. From Bosch, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh to Dalí, Kusama, Basquiat, and Dutch Design, there’s something for everyone. In 2019 the museum building closed for renovation, and is slated to reopen in 2030. The expansive collection of more than 155,000 objects remains publicly accessible at the Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, where a dynamic program of exhibitions also offer fresh perspectives on the collection.