Artist and welder Cal Lane confronts traditional dichotomies of feminine and masculine by carving ornate botanical and figurative patterns into steel with a blow torch. Starting with ready-made materials like shovels, oil drums, car parts, dumpsters, wheelbarrows and shipping containers, she burns lacy, veil-like patterns into the metal objects. The results, much like “a wrestler in a tutu,” as she puts it, are stunning.
Gutter Snipes I was shown at Benrimon Contemporary, New York in 2011. The exhibit features a 20-foot long, six-foot diameter steel corrugated pipe first cut in half and welded together to make a 40-foot long half arch, then intricately cut with fantastic, medieval creatures in an apocalyptic setting.
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1968, Cal Lane grew up in Saanichton, British Columbia and earned a BFA in Painting from Victoria College of Art (1994). She earned a second BFA in Sculpture from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (2001 from her website) and completed an MFA in Sculpture from State University of New York (2005). She is a certified welder.
Her work has been exhibited at the 2012 Sidney Biennale, NADA Hudson 2012, the Pelham Art Center in New York, Le Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides in Saint-Jerome, Quebec, the Musea Brugge in Belgium and at the Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, NY among others. Lane currently lives and works in Putnam Valley, New York.
