Magali Reus

Magali Reus was born in Den Haag, The Netherlands in 1981, and currently lives and works in London.

Reus’s sculptures are accumulations of images and things – she draws on objects she finds around her, recombining them into something strange and unfamiliar. Although a keen observer of the physical world, Reus avoids using readymade objects, instead each element of her sculptural jigsaws has been meticulously fabricated using a mixture of technological and traditionally craft-based techniques. Colours, materials, textures, sizes, shapes are all manipulated, throwing everyday habits of association into disarray, inviting the viewer to question the way objects may take on – or shed – meanings.

Reus had her first UK museum solo exhibition, Particle of Inch, at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2015. The artist has subsequently had a number of solo exhibitions including Mustard, The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2016); Quarters, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2016); Hot Cottons, Bergen Kunsthall (2017); Night Plants, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen (2017) and As Mist, Description, South London Gallery (2018).

Reus was awarded the Prix de Rome 2015 and was nominated for The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture in 2018. For her second presentation at The Hepworth Wakefield, Reus created a number of new works with funding support from the Mondriaan Fund.

‘I’m interested in how… a simple form can generate an immediate chain of associations – people, places, smells, sounds.’

Magali Reus, Hwael (The Flat), 2017. © Magali Reus. Courtesy The Approach, London. Photo: Plastiques

Magali Reus, Arbroath Smokie, 2016. © Magali Reus. Courtesy The Approach, London. Photo: Plastiques

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Magali Reus, Alps

£1,200. Edition of 14 (plus 5 artist proofs) Engraved with the edition numbered and artist's initials.

Reus’s sculptures are accumulations of images and things she draws on objects she finds around her, recombining them into something strange and unfamiliar. Although a keen observer of the physical world, Reus avoids using readymade objects, instead each element of her sculptural jigsaws has been meticulously fabricated using a mixture of technological and traditionally craft-based techniques. Colours, materials, textures, sizes, shapes are all manipulated, throwing everyday habits of association into disarray, inviting the viewer to question the way objects may take on or shed meanings.

Magali Reus: Perimeter

£300, Edition of 25.

To accompany her first solo exhibition in a UK institution at The Hepworth Wakefield, Dutch artist Magali Reus has produced a limited edition sculpture which is loosely based on the form of a tea cup.

Reus has adapted the form and removed its essential and most primary characteristics – the handle and the bottom. The sculpture’s surface is inlaid with markings which reference the energetic line of archaeological cave drawings.

The mug forms are cast with pigmented and waxed Jesmonite. These forms assume a stone-like quality, but continuing an interest in serial forms, each mug is unique and painted with an individual edition number.

Magali Reus: Particle of Inch Catalogue

£15

In the spring of 2015, Magali Reus (b. 1981, the Hague, the Netherlands; based in London) opened the first in a series of four exhibitions of new work co-commissioned and presented by Sculpture Center, New York; The Hepworth Wakefield, England; Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany; and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy. The culmination of these collaborative projects is documented in this publication, marking an important chapter in the evolution of Reus’s work.