DAN LANE sessions Studio
It’s hard to believe that Dan Lane has only been on the contemporary art scene for five years. After being persuaded by his friends and family to go public in April 2014, the former engineer featured in a range of local and national newspapers, magazines, blogs and TV programmes – including BBC News. Behind the intricate sculptures was a moniker: Mechanica. Now with a new collection and his own distinct style, the artist reveals why he’s ready to be known as Dan Lane. A sell-out solo exhibition – Every Piece of Me – in 2015 was just the start of a successful career for Dan. Since signing with our publisher, Washington Green Fine Art, he has gone on to feature in high profile campaigns and collections such as the Sonic 25 collection. Following the launch in December 2016, Dan’s original sculpture was purchased by SEGA and now takes pride of place in their UK headquarters. A second solo show, Unchained , in 2017 was held at Village Underground in East London, and it was following this exhibition that a new style of work began to take shape. Leap forward to the start of 2019 and it's been a year of experimentation. Inspired by the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Michelangelo and Antonio Canova, Dan's new sculptures – collectively titled Modern Relics – reimagine a classic style in a thoroughly modern setting. He explains: "I want people to imagine that they were created in the present, but found in the future. I want them to look as if they should be in museums from the future, just like the work of the artists from the past I aspire to." This fusion of complexity and style affords Dan an entirely new artistic fingerprint all of his very own. His passion for assemblage art has metamorphosed into a technique that now sees him sculpt, mould and cast the majority of components by hand, in addition to the inclusion of found or specially sourced objects. The excavated, archaeological feel of his anatomical pieces has resulted in an aesthetic that is as much Pompeii as Shoreditch; a reach into antiquity brought into an achingly hipster age. Dan’s musings on how stylistic contrivances – from exaggerated physical strength to sculpted facial features and elaborate hairstyles – might translate into the modern day are symbolised by the tattoos of these ‘modern relics’. The diverse nature of his subject matter, executed with such masterful artistry, has won him acclaim from both his fellow artists and critics alike. And it is now, with his supporters awaiting his next move, that he can put his name to his art.
40 FINE ART COLLECTOR SPRING 2019
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