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Danny Lane b. 1955
Lane was born in Illinois, USA. He now lives and
works in London, beginning an apprenticeship in
1975 with stained-glass artist Patrick Reyntiens,
who recommended him to the Ruskin School,
Oxford. In 1978, Lane moved to the Central
School of Art & Design, London, where he
trained as a painter under artist Cecil Collins,
who introduced him to concepts of mysticism
and the spirituality of art.
Danny Lane's works can be enjoyed in many public
spaces in the UK and around the world, among
which are General Motors USA, the Victoria &
Albert Museum and Canary Wharf plc.
This luminescent stairway leading from the grass
skyward is immediately intriguing and reminds
us of the story in the Old Testament of Jacob's
Ladder, set up between heaven and earth; the
imagery of Angels ascending and descending on
it. Lane has created a stairway without an ending
or landing, and removed it from its function,
immediately communicating that this is a stairway
of symbolism, an archetype distilled from the
mundane. Playing upon the phrase "stairway to
heaven", Lane has transformed those very words
into an object.
Stairway is a synthesis of poetic meaning and
engineering ingenuity. There are only three
angles in the entire work, 30, 60 and 90
degrees. The structure is a post-tensioned
cantilever, utilising the high value of glass
under compression. Stairway has a feeling of
contemporary architecture, a familiar context
for Lane's sculpture.
Stairway, 2007
Glass and steel. Edition of 6
600 x 190 x 418 cm
Courtesy of the artist
www.dannylane.co.uk
Danny Lane's symbolic glass stairway poses the question,
in what ways might your life be described as climbing a stairway
and what would you hope to find beyond the final step?
