A lifetime’s work of art is being displayed at Greenly Art Space in Signal Hill, for an exhibit focusing on the career of artist William Lane.
“Wanderings” includes artwork by Lane spanning six decades, showcasing the different styles and artistic periods he has gone through. The earliest works displayed were made while Lane was a graduate student in the 1960s, with the newest being made in the last few years.
While Lane once predominantly showcased his abstract works, Wanderings also includes figurative paintings inspired by the artist’s experiences in Mexico, where he lived for a year after graduate school. Lane returned to the United States with photographs of his travels and incorporated the scenes into his artwork.
[aesop_image img=”https://signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/The-Weavers-Egg-Tempera-on-Wood.jpg” panorama=”off” credit=”Painting by William Lane” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” caption=”The Weavers by William Lane was inspired by the artist’s experiences in Mexico and will be on display at part of the Wanderings art exhibit at Greenly Art Space in Signal Hill until April 3.” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]“I’d just have a lot of sensations that were strong enough,” Lane told the Signal Tribune at the opening reception for “Wanderings” on Saturday, Feb. 29. “I felt connected enough to them that I wanted to do something with them. Some of them would be buried in the abstract work, but some work became very figurative. I worked from some of the images that I photographed, some of the scenes, and put things together, just because I liked Mexico so much and I missed it and I wanted to recapture some of the sensations.”
One of Lane’s paintings inspired by photos taken in Mexico is The Weavers, which shows two men standing on a sidewalk, holding pieces of cloth while in front of a church. The two figures he painted are based on a photograph Lane took in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the church is from a photograph of Chiapas, Mexico that he found in a book. The Weavers was done in egg tempera and took Lane longer to finish than any other work in “Wanderings.”
Both Lane’s abstract and figurative paintings use vibrant colors, and Lane told the Signal Tribune that he could be viewed as a colorist, who are known for making intense color the principal characteristic of their art.
“My work depends on color for the resolution of the final image state,” Lane said.
[aesop_image img=”https://signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/wanderings2.jpg” panorama=”off” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]Kimberly Hocking, Greenly Art Space co-founder and curator, worked with Lane to select which pieces would be included in “Wanderings.” They were originally working with a selection of over 60 pieces, and were able to narrow that down to a final 30 pieces for the show.
“I thought this would be a really wonderful time to think about and to talk about doing some type of a retrospective show,” Hocking told the Signal Tribune. “And so we really conversed about the ways that there are these connections in form and shape and color and things like that, over the lifetime of his work.”
Wanderings will be on display until April 3. Guests can view the free exhibit on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11am to 2pm, or by appointment, which can be made by calling (562) 533-4020.
