Mark Handforth

Often focusing on large-scale sculpture, Handforth’s work reflects objects from public spaces—street signs, fluorescent lights, street lamps, and traffic cones. These objects are then altered as Handforth twists and bends them, covers some with wax from burning candles or dripping paint. A feature of many of Handforth’s exhibitions is his placement of works in a gallery space and the continuation of the exhibition outdoors, in front of or near the gallery or museum.

Handforth also works with fluorescent light tubes, creating representations of such things suns, stars, lightning bolts, or abstract designs placed on gallery walls. His work is often described as Minimalist, and his light sculptures are reminiscent of Dan Flavin’s work. His oversized sculptures reflect elements of Claes Oldenburg’s large-scale sculptures. Some critics also identify elements of Pop Art and Surrealism in his work. Handforth often takes objects from popular culture—such as a Vespa or a satellite dish—and turns them into art objects by reappropriating their use. Other cultural icons prominent in Handforth's work—the heart, star, and stop sign—are references to Pop Art.

Handforth’s first solo museum show in the United States was held in 1996 the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. The exhibition Mark Handforth: Rolling Stop was also the museum’s first Miami-based artist to receive a solo show. He exhibits at the museum again in 2011–2012.

Mark Handforth's outdoor exhibition (2011) on the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s plaza displays three large-scale and one small-scale work: PhoneBone combines an oversized femur set upright with an equally oversized yellow phone handset affixed to the bone’s side; LamppostSnake and Blackbird—a large, bent lamppost and a massive black aluminum hanger, respectively—sit atop the building’s plinths on either side of the staircase; BeatProp displays an English Bobby hat atop a safety cone, each colored with dripped paint.

Wishbone (2010) is a 7-½ foot tall aluminum sculpture on display outside of the Hessel Museum at Bard (2011). Handforth digitally enlarged an image of a chicken wishbone to produce the massive sculpture.

Handforth's first solo show in the United Kingdom was in 2004 at The Modern Institute in Glasgow, Scotland, which again held exhibitions of his work in 2006 and 2010. The exhibition presented works such as Fire, neon light tubes mounted on a gallery wall; Volcano, a tree stump covered in colored wax from candles alight atop it; and Left, an oversized street sign bent into an S-shape.

The Public Art Fund sponsored Handforth's Lamppost (2003), which was installed at the Doris Freedman Plaza in Midtown Manhattan. Lamppost was the first of many outdoor works in his series of twisted and bent lampposts. The industrial lamppost was bent in two places so it would rest on the ground, and it lit the public space with glowing, red lights.

Handforth grew up in London, England, and attended Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London. Handforth moved to Miami, Florida, in 1992.

Mark Handforth (born in Hong Kong 1969) is a sculptor based in Miami, Florida. Some of his works are attributed to site-specific art. In 2007 he installed a sculpture titled Dallas Snake in the park of the Dallas Museum of Art. Four works are exhibited outside the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago through October 2011.