Burning Square by Mandy El-Sayegh

Burning Square,
Works by Mandy El-Sayegh
2nd Floor Landing
Until October 2025

A selection of large-scale works by Mandy El-Sayegh, this collection features Burning Square (Jude) (2024), Net-Grid Study (Time Capture 13.11.23) (2023), and Burning Square: Free from I (2023) from the Blessings series. These layered, mixed-media compositions exemplify El-Sayegh’s exploration of cultural, political, and bodily fragmentation through painting, installation, and collage.

Her practice weaves together materials like newsprint, anatomical drawings, advertising, maps and her father’s calligraphy with gestural brushwork. The result is a complex interrogation of language, perception, and meaning. Central to her work is the interplay between part and whole—how fragments accumulate to form or obscure narrative.

Reworking the Modernist grid, El-Sayegh turns a symbol of order into a device of disruption. The flesh-toned pages of the Financial Times recur throughout, their associations with global finance reinforcing the body-politic themes in her work. In her Blessings series, gold leaf squares—referencing Chinese ancestral rituals—serve as stand-ins for erased or suppressed archives, offering a potent meditation on memory, loss, and the fragility of history.

The Stairway Exhibitions are dedicated to showcasing the best collections in the region and beyond; as well as timely solo and group shows of emerging and established artists, both regional and international.