Lee Machell situates his practice within a vocabulary of commonplace objects that he invests with the status of sculpture. The main concerns of Machell’s practice are its object centric sculptural statements and the orchestration of his works often calls for a topographical understanding of the space they occupy.

Machell’s work is process based and material led and often pays reference to the various accoutrements of the studio. In his recent work he explores various materials using digital print and also continues his experimentation with found cut out images. Two recent works are Acetate (2017 - 2018) and Floor (2018). The work Acetate comprises a translucent plastic bag that once housed a Hanimex 35mm slide projector; Machell then scanned and printed this on a sheet of acetate measuring 100 x 150 cm. He exhibited this piece directly opposite Floor (2018), a found cut out image of a wooden gallery floor (Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 - 2015) which he mounted on two pins at an oblique angle, resulting in a playful punctuation with the wall’s spatiality alongside the transparent work of Acetate that hung delicately from the tips of two pins.

In Machell’s previous works on paper, each work’s inception is an object which he uses to create drawings that synthesize the various elements of his practice. In Cap (2013) Machell delineates an oil paint tube’s screw cap with matches; as the heat permeates the plastic it captures the object’s minute detail on paper. Past sculptural works continue the reductive approach inherent in the works on paper, such as Handle (2012) in which two paint tubs’ handles interlock to create a loop, as previously distinct objects - one part is “male” and the other “female” - a simple action serves to unite them as a sculptural entity that rests weightlessly on the floor’s surface.

Machell’s use of appropriated cut out images, such as Floor, is an ongoing exploration of imagery from various types of magazines and books. His floor-based work Camera (2013) is an object with an uncertain provenance. It may have been a photograph of a sculpture of the Minolta XD7 camera or even a computer-generated image of a sculpture of the camera. The Minolta XD7 as a marble sculpture infers that the object is original and valuable, akin to that of a sculpture; its presence in an advertisement for the Minolta XD7 in the October 1978 issue of National Geographic serves to disseminate it to a mass audience whereby its value as an object is minimal as it exists in endless repetition.

In his site-specific works he uses lit matches to create an ephemeral line that cuts across the wall(s) of a space; a tracing of marks is left by lighting a line of abutting matches, a progression of ignitions punctuates the wall of the display space. Rather than an activity deferred, here is a modest monument to an activity completed: the shadowy tracing of an economy firework display experienced through a horizontal scribble of contained anarchy.