John Lane the talented young Irish painter will hold a solo exhibition of his work in Dublin's Sol Art Gallery from Friday Oct 21st- Nov 3rd. "My current body of work observes the chaotic nature of chance occurrence. After having a child, I noticed that I began to have fears about the precarious nature of life's balance, and how easily a chance event which could be controllable or uncontrollable could affect this person who became so immediately tied to me in a unique emotional bond. This fear manifested itself in a sense of paranoia, making me wonder about the danger of birth defects, genetic imperfections, and then the ease in which a perfectly healthy child could be scarred or damaged by a random encounter (i.e. an accident, disease etc.) This manifested fear and paranoia brought me to a study of these chaotic events that cause deformities. I have been involved in a study of portrait art for some years, dissecting and analysing the history and nature of portraits, and attempting to push portraiture beyond classical realms. This project aims to distinguish the beautiful from the terrible by using subject matter often jarring (in the form of deformed human subjects) in both a study of the uncomfortable reality of chaos' unpredictability and of portraiture as a method. I use the canvas and frames from old paintings to allow these layers of emotional and physical presence to rest underneath my own energetic brushwork. In a personal way, I wanted to respond to how it can be to be human, and to get by when you are always walking that fine line between hearthache and happiness. The happiness,the beauty and love in humans will always shine on through our darkest times. This show is about what it feels like to be human, the tight rope we all walk during our life and the influence of chaos and the certainty of chance on our own existence. "