BIOGRAPHY
An assemblage artist from Kent with a liking for all things mechanical, intricate and unusual, Dan Lane aka Mechanica creates sculptures with a dark yet beautiful take on natural forms by mechanical intervention; an industrial version of life. Having worked as an engineer for fifteen years, Dan Lane began creating sculptures as a hobby three years ago. After being persuaded by family and friends, he went public with his artwork in April 2014, to an overwhelming response. In this short time he has been featured in a range of local and national newspapers, magazines and blogs, and even on the BBC 6 o’clock news. In August, he was selected to take part in the Summer Exhibition at Castle Fine Art in Mayfair, and was subsequently signed to Washington Green Fine Art Publishing. Now, he is preparing to exhibit his largest collection to date - ‘Every Piece Of Me’ - which will debut at Castle Fine Art in June 2015. On the new collection, Dan says: “Each piece in this collection will be a more amplified version of anything I have done before stretching my abilities to create the most visually intricate and detailed sculptures. When people view this collection I want them to spend hours getting lost in each piece and taking in all the small details.” The inspiration for Dan’s work comes from many different sources. He draws inspiration from sculptures in churches and cathedrals across the world, finding real presence and mood in the baroque, over-the-top styling.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini is a particular inspiration of his, and he incorporates these types of Baroque sculpture as centre pieces in some of his sculptures, providing a strong focal point and adding to the concept of the dark yet beautiful. Dan incorporates elements from nature, using flowers, insects, birds etc to juxtapose the mechanical bias of his sculptures, saying: “I love the idea of having something beautiful like a butterfly or a hummingbird trying to find its place or break out of the industrial worlds that I create.” Each of Dan’s sculptures is the result of months of meticulous searching and collecting parts and features from all manner of different sources. Most begin with a central figure which inspires him, and he will then spend countless hours putting together a mechanical world around the main focal feature. Many people assume that his sculptures are made from metal, but in reality they incorporate many different materials including plastics, metals and ceramics. Each piece is primed and sprayed with a dark metallic grey, then dry brushed with silver to give the weather worn effect which makes it appear that the sculpture is cast from metal. The natural features are hand painted and fixed into position afterwards, offering a stark contrast and focal point to the piece. He says: “This whole paint process is something that I have really had to master myself, my newest works look a lot more uniform in there appearance than my very earliest pieces.”
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