Cal Lane reflects on childhood memories and the exploration of gender roles as she draws inspiration from her time at her mother's hair salon and her training as a welder to create intricate juxtapositional works blending delicate lacy patterns with industrial forms.
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1968, Cal Lane received a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2001 and a Master's of Fine Arts in Sculpture from State University of New York in 2005. Following her Bachelor's degree Lane began exhibiting and in 2001 opened a solo exhibition at Anna Leonowens Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the same year, Lane was part of a group exhibition at the Sculpture Center in Hamilton, New Jersey. She has exhibited widely across the US and Canada, including solo shows at Art Mûr in Montreal (2022), Foley Gallery in New York, NY (2018), Centre d'exposition de Val-David in Quebec (2018), Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides in Saint-Jérôme (2010), Judi Rotenberg Gallery in Boston (2008) and group exhibitions at EXPO Chicago (2025), Carnegie Art Center in California (2020), Consulate General of Canada in New York (2019), Arizona Art Museum, WAZAM (2019), NYU Langone Art Gallery (2019), San Jose Museum of Art (2018), and The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco (2014). She has also been recognized internationally with exhibitions at Musée des Manufactures de Dentelles in Retournac, France (2008, 2010), Musea Brugge in Brugge, Belgium (2008), Musée des Tissus et des Arts décoratifs de Lyon in Lyon, France (2008),18th Biennale de Sydney: all our relations, Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2012), ABTART GmbH in Stuttgart, Germany (2017), Sharjah Art Museum in UAE (2016), Trafalgar Square in London, England (2017), and at Contemporary Istanbul (2023).
Cal Lane's artwork is physical, reflective, and conceptual. She pokes fun at gender roles long associated with sculptural expression. Her fabrications wink to the work of artists Louise Bourgeois and Judy Chicago, while her ideas contrast with her choice of materials. Lane deconstructs the modernist image of industrial objects, by manually cutting into the form and redefining it. Solid steel becomes delicate, open patterned lace and monumental sculptures become intimate. A Canadian, Lane was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1968, but spent her formative years on the West Coast on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Her sculptural talents were first discovered in her mother's salon, where she worked part time as a hairdresser after school and on weekends. She studied welding and metalwork during that time, a practical skill she used after high school to support herself. She repaired tug boats and did heavy structural work in industrial applications. Lane describes herself as an artist at every step of her career, how becoming a welder was how she made money but that making things, whether sculptures or tug boats, the act of constructing is her way of trying to make sense of the world.