Danny Lane

Lane came to attention in the 1980s through his art furniture. He moved into large-scale public sculpture in the 1990s, being responsible in 2006 for Borealis, believed to be the largest glass sculpture in the world. Lane's work can be found in public spaces and collections worldwide, such as London Underground, Canary Wharf Plc, Victoria & Albert Museum, Microsoft, British Land Plc, Rolex UK, British Airports Authority, Swire Properties (Hong Kong) and General Motors (USA). To construct his glass sculptures, Lane exploits the strength of glass under compression and its qualities of luminosity. This approach expands on traditional methods of glass and metal smithing and has resulted in a varied body of work, from monumental structures made from industrial float glass and steel, to coloured glass sculpture, casts and design objects.

• Name — Danny Lane • Born — 27 January 1955 • Birthplace — Urbana, Illinois, United States • Field — Sculpture, Public Art, Design • Training — * Patrick Reyntiens • Byam Shaw School of Art • Central School of Art & Design, London • Website — dannylane.co.uk

Lane was born in 1955 in Urbana, Illinois, in the United States. During his childhood, his family moved many times, from Virginia to West Germany, New York City’s Greenwich Village and finally Baltimore. Travelling through Europe exposed Lane to a wide range of art and architecture. Lane moved to the United Kingdom in 1975 to begin an apprenticeship with stained-glass artist Patrick Reyntiens at Burleighfield House in Buckinghamshire, and then Ruskin School, Oxford, before attending a foundation course in Fine Art at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London. Reyntiens recommended Lane to the Central School of Art & Design, London, where he trained as a painter under artist Cecil Collins, whose personal philosophy and method of teaching influenced Lane's own creative development. As well as teaching Lane how to be analytical about materials, Collins introduced him to concepts of mysticism and the spirituality of art.

• Illustration — Etruscan Chair, 1985 • Illustration — Woodcutter's Table, 1989 • Illustration — Angaraib, 1987 Though now well known for his large-scale public artworks, Lane was first known in the 1980s for the construction of his design objects and art furniture. These objects often have functional names, but frequently venture into abstraction. In 1981, Lane established his first studio in London's East End, Hackney, where time spent in local workshops gave him a respect for traditional craftsmanship, and saw him begin to accumulate stacks of metal, glass and wood with which to experiment. Lane then began developing objects using industrial float glass, and by the mid-1980s he was experimenting with assemblage, uniting found materials in his furniture. During this period in the early 1980s, Lane met designer Ron Arad. Within a year of their meeting, he was offered his first solo exhibition at Arad's influential shop One Off in Shelton Street, London, where he showed several works including Romeo and Juliet table (1984). In 1984 Lane exhibited abroad for the first time at the International Furniture Fair in Milan, making folding glass screens with sandblasted and acid etched drawings. In 1986, Lane began to exhibit work at London's Themes & Variations gallery. During these early years, he developed a series of editioned works and by the end of the 1980s, Lane had exhibited work at solo shows in London, Paris and Milan. Best known from this period, Lane's Etruscan Chair (1985) is featured in several museum collections. The piece was constructed from inch-thick float glass, industrial nuts and bolts, forged stainless steel and aluminium. Another work from this period is Angaraib (1987), which takes its name from the traditional Sudanese rope-bed, united with the concept of the North American Indian 'horse travois'. The work is constructed from the branches of a storm damaged London plane tree, bound together with hemp rope, on top of which sits a raft of glass. By 1989, Lane's focus on larger-scale works required him to move to his current studio and gallery where he is still based today, a 10,000 square foot converted factory in Willesden, West London. The studio employs a team of technicians and is equipped with glass furnaces, kilns, offices and an exhibition space.

• Illustration — Saddle, 2006 When first working with metal, Lane did not have his own forge or know how to weld, yet his interest in this process resulted in several pieces early in his career. Lane cites the origin of his interest in steel as his admiration for the work of Antoni Gaudi, and especially the work of Josep Maria Jujol at Gaudí's Casa Milà in Barcelona. Early in his career, Lane produced RSJ Table (1985). Moscow Bar, designed the following year in 1986 with Simon Holbrook, was an interior installation, comprising bar, tables and chairs for the Moscow Club on Soho's Frith Street, London. The late 1980s saw Lane shift into large-scale metal work. Lane developed methods of heating steel, making it possible to bend metal freely into what he calls "steel drawings," which are produced to function much like industrial-scale automatic drawings. An example of this work is Saddle (2006), in which a twisted metallic ribbon supports a glass tabletop.

• Illustration — Carved Cast, 2015 Lane has experimented with new methods in recent years, producing new non-commissioned sculptural works. Progressing from early explorations with glass casting, Lane has coined a new process as ‘carved casts’, in which he spontaneously cuts into the mold material. This creates thick reliefs when melted into the carved molds. These ‘carved casts’ were influenced by Lane's admiration for ancient traditions of stone carving and classical sculpture relief.

Danny Lane lives in Maida Vale, West London. His father, M. Daniel Lane, was a scientist and his mother was an art historian and environmentalist. He has two children, Lauren and Joseph.