All my work begins with observation from nature. I want to know what lies behind the forms and textures –the marks of time and experience written into everything from fossils and rock formations to plants and trees.

My drawings and sculptures are partners in crime and dancing partners. Drawing involves investigative mark-making and sculpture is a form of physical thinking. The combination is a material proposition that invites you to look at the world in a completely different way, to escape words and communicate in a physical way.

Rather than working realistically, I'd rather look beneath the surface to observe raw energy and a struggle. The forces of growth and decay, pressure, time, and adverse human influences work their way into the tension between 2D and 3D. I don’t want to imitate nature, I would rather interrogate it. - Iain Machell 2026

Artist Talk: Sat, Sept 26, 1-2pm