In these drawings organic shapes are dominant, monochromatic, and are often interrupted by mechanical grids. Planar directions, surface texture, wet & dry media are all pushed & pulled from 2D into 3D to respond to the gothic power of the natural world, specifically rock formations. Nature is not something to worship and aestheticize, it is under threat, dark and dangerous, and needs to be appeased because something is definitely wrong.
Iain Machell trained at Portsmouth College of Art in England, Grays School of Art in Scotland with an MFA in Sculpture at SUNY Albany.
His work has been shown at The Drawing Center, The Sculpture Center, Artists Space, The Center for Book Arts, and Dieu Donne Gallery in New York, ARC Gallery Raw Space in Chicago, Islip Art Museum on Long Island, and Contemporary Outdoor Sculpture at Chesterwood in Stockbridge, MA. His drawings are in the Pierogi Gallery flat files in Brooklyn, and handmade books can be seen in the flat files at Dieu Donne Gallery in Brooklyn and the MoMA Artist Book Collection. In Summer 2015 he completed a Residency at the Platte Clove Preserve in the Catskill Mountains, NY and recent solo shows were at Cross Contemporary Art in Saugerties NY, and the Unison Arts Center, New Paltz, NY.
Machell is Fine Art Professor Emeritus at SUNY Ulster. He was awarded the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2012 and has been a Visiting Artist and Lecturer to numerous colleges and universities including Parsons School of Art, University of Massachusetts, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Ball State University.
