Max Bainbridge
Artist Profile
Max Bainbridge (b. 1991, London). Lives and works in Somerset.
Max Bainbridge is a sculptor who works mainly in wood, often combined with cast metal. He uses only trees that have fallen where they grew, and shapes each work from the form, grain and character of a single tree, so that the finished sculpture keeps a direct link to the land it came from.
His processes include stripping bark, hollowing trunks, burning, burnishing and ebonising surfaces, coating with pine tar, and casting in pewter, bronze and brass. He carves native and naturalised hardwoods, among them ash, beech, horse chestnut, sycamore, Scots elm and Scots pine. The results are vessels, such as the Land Jar and Crucible series, and free-standing sculptures, some over two metres tall. Recurring themes are vulnerability, protection and endurance in the natural world. For Hollow Bodies (2024), the first outdoor sculpture installation by Make Hauser & Wirth, he used three sections of wind-felled Scots pine from the Cairngorms. He stripped and burned the trunks, coated them in pine tar and added cast pewter elements.
Bainbridge studied at Chelsea College of Arts, London, completing a Foundation in 2010 and a BA in Fine Art in 2013. In 2014 he founded Forest + Found, a partnership with the artist Abigail Booth that produces exhibitions, public commissions and curatorial projects. His solo exhibitions include Prophetic Land at Make Hauser & Wirth, Somerset (2024) and Galerie Amélie du Chalard, Paris (2026); Soft Bodies, Dark Hearts at Ruthin Craft Centre (2024); and A Thin Place at Sim Smith, London (2026). He was selected for the Jerwood Makers Open and received a QEST Scholarship in 2019, and was a finalist for the John Ruskin Prize in 2024. In 2023 he took up a residency with Make Hauser & Wirth in Braemar, Scotland. He is represented in London by Sim Smith.
Selected Exhibitions & CV
Education
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, London (2013)
Foundation in Art and Design, Chelsea College of Arts, London (2010)
Awards
John Ruskin Prize, finalist (2024)
QEST Scholarship, Woodturning and Sculpture, Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (2019)
Jerwood Makers Open, Jerwood Arts (2019)
London Creative Network, Cockpit Arts (2018)
Collect Open, Crafts Council (2018)
Hothouse, Crafts Council (2017)
British Design Award: Craft, Elle Decoration (2016)
Best New Body of Work, Craft Central (2016)
Selected Solo Exhibitions
A Thin Place, Sim Smith, London (2026)
Prophetic Land, Galerie Amélie du Chalard, Paris, France (2026)
Prophetic Land, Make Hauser & Wirth, Bruton (2024)
Hollow Bodies, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton (2024)
Soft Bodies, Dark Hearts, Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin (2024)
Idylls of the Field, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro (2022)
Shallow Lands, Informality, Oxfordshire (2021)
Biophilia, Make Hauser & Wirth, Bruton (2021)
Walking The Line, Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Carmarthen (2019)
Walking The Line, Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin (2018)
Two-Person Exhibitions
The House is Full of Ghosts, with Abigail Booth (as Forest + Found), 8 Holland Street, London (2026)
Selected Group Exhibitions
House & Garden Craft Prize 2026, Sotheby’s, London (2026)
This Country, Crafts Council Gallery, London (2024)
Material Beings, Cromwell Place, London (2023)
Crafted by Nature, Radnōr, New York, USA (2023)
Common Thread, New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury (2020)
Jerwood Makers Open, Jerwood Space, London, and UK tour (2019)
Re-New, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2019)
New Truth to Materials: Wood, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Ditchling (2018)
Art Fairs
Collect, Somerset House, London (2022)
PLATFORM, London Art Fair, London (2021)
Collect, Somerset House, London (2020)
Collect, with Jaggedart, Saatchi Gallery, London (2019)
Collect Open, Saatchi Gallery, London (2018)
Residencies
Colstoun Arts, East Lothian, Scotland (2026)
Make Hauser & Wirth, Braemar, Scotland (2023)
Thinking Residency, Harp Cottage, Wales (2019)
Artist House, Cold Press Gallery, Norfolk (2017, 2019)
Need, Make, Use, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (2017)