Outdoor Sculpture Celebration: Max Bainbridge

In celebration of Make Hauser & Wirth’s inaugural outdoor sculpture, join artist Max Bainbridge to explore his work ‘Hollow Bodies’ (2024), installed at Hauser & Wirth Somerset.  

Through the stripping of bark, casting of branches, burning of trunks and coatings of pine tar, Bainbridge explores what is imbibed and held within these trees throughout their lifetime. He looks to how their environment has shaped and changed them, and in doing so, reflects on our own place within the natural world, and its effects upon us. In this act of ‘othering’ Bainbridge questions what they have now become. Each tree offering a different lament on what it means to be human, to exist within a fragile and ever-changing ecosystem. 

Tickets are free, however advance booking is required. Bainbridge’s outdoor sculpture will be on view from Saturday 10 February – Sunday 7 April.

About Max Bainbridge
Working predominantly in wood, Max Bainbridge’s sculpture practice reflects his drive to preserve a tangible and grounded presence through the physicality of the sculpted material object. By seeking out trees that have fallen where they once grew, his sculptures retain a direct and intimate connection to land and place, recognizing the tree as a living being that can occupy both our inner psyche and the physical character of its former site. His search for the true essence of the tree is thereby ever present within the form of his large-scale vessels and free-standing sculptures. For each work, Bainbridge takes the natural shape and character of the tree itself and responds to it directly, allowing the inherent agency of the wood to push back and inform sculptural decision making. Embodying the monumental presence of the tree into objects on a more intimate human scale, his works become quiet reflections on our relationship with the natural world and the importance of evaluating our place within it. 

Bainbridge trained at Chelsea College of Art, London, UK, receiving a BA Fine Art in 2013. He has exhibited his work at Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton, UK (2018 and 2024); Informality Gallery, Oxfordshire, UK (2022); Amelie Maison D’Art, Paris, France (2022); and New Art Centre, Roche Court, Wiltshire, UK (2020). In 2023, Bainbridge undertook in a residency in Braemar, Scotland, UK with Make Hauser & Wirth. In 2014, he established Forest + Found, an art collective with whom he works on public commissions, exhibitions and curatorial projects. In 2024, Bainbridge was a John Ruskin Prize Finalist.

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This event coincides with artist Katie Spragg’s spotlight talks, where she will discuss how her multi-site residency project inspired the works featured in Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset’s exhibition ‘Natural Practice.’ 

Please be advised that photographs will be taken at this event for use on the Hauser & Wirth website, social media and in other marketing materials.