Adrian Lane produces mixed media work on canvas or wood. This work is made up of diverse materials such as sand, glue, wood, fabric, printed papers, photographs, wood varnish, oil and acrylic paints.

 

Adrian creates desirable, seductive works of art: luxurious, tactile surfaces, structured geometric orderliness, but the quality of colour and surface within the canvasses are forever changing depending on the quality of light and time of day. There is a subtle balance between the lustrous sheen and grittiness, the geometry and the spontaneity of marks and brush strokes. Images of landscapes drift along the horizontal axis, giving a romantic depth to the series of canvases.

 

Adrian also releases music for the specialist record labels Preserved Sound, Whitelabrecs and Naviar Records. Adrian produces neo-classical ambient instrumental music, in which narratives unfold, evocative of the simplicity, but sophistication of bleak, open landscapes. These are soundtracks to romance, melancholia, a renewed sense of time, space, place and oneself.

 

Unusually, Adrian's processes of working are symbiotic. "The way I work is quite similar in music and painting. I build up in layers, like starting a painting and reactions to layers develop in response to each other. In creating my music, I start with a phrase on one instrument, which I build up with another phrase on another instrument." Within his range of instruments, such as the bowed psaltery (a folk instrument with medieval roots), zither, percussion, piano and laptop, Adrian produces a very distinctive and captivating sound.

 

The processes of producing music are found in the visual analogy to Adrian's creativity. He says that “The layers of these compositions hide as much as they reveal: unfolding the miscellaneous elements incorporated into the canvas, the images impressed on the canvas then covered with paint or other images - these are events in a history that is only partly visible. There is a sense for me that the search is as important as the discovery; the pieces reward the closer inspection and repeated viewing. Signs, symbols and shapes that appear enigmatic are often revealed to be detritus of everyday life.”