Danny Lane

Description

This luminescent staircase leading from the grass skyward is immediately intriguing. That Lane has created a stairway without an ending or landing, and that he has removed it from its function, immediately communicates 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. From certain perspectives, the glass appears water-like. Is this a reference to the metaphorical slippery path of life on which one can so easily stray from the heavenly way? Its transparency, and the vertical movement of the texture, exaggerates a notion of being propelled skyward as the blue of the sky colours the glass.

Both the long and short-term passage of time is implied through the geometry of perspective. As the light changes, catching the facets of the glass, they seem to glow with a spiritual light, reaffirming their link to the phrase "stairway to heaven". As a functional object removed from its usual place in our lives, it could refer to the notion of the ready-made, forcing us to reassess the way we view everyday objects and life.