Hannah Lane is an award-winning wood and paper artist employing traditional woodworking techniques to produce tactile bespoke artworks for exhibition, installation, and commission. Her process combines two materials that began at the same source - wood, a material of longevity and paper, a short-term material that she recycles into a solid material to create a new shape and texture, thus extending its journey. As the pieces are hand worked each material’s grain exposes the consequences of her working actions, revealing the unseen internal imprint as the surface is scraped away.
She began working with paper in 2002 after accidentally leaving a book out in the rain, which led to the development of the award-winning Paperwork. She had previously specialised in woodworking during my degree and transferred those wood working techniques to the paper. Recycling has always been an important element within my work, so to be able to create a technique using the printed pages of unwanted books and paper that no longer had a use became a defining factor within her practise.
She handmakes each item in her Nottinghamshire studio, beginning by making the material. Each page is layered and transformed back into a solid wood-like block. Traditional woodworking methods are then used to shape the objects; the unique surface patterns on the paper when the objects are worked can never be recreated and echoes wood grain; wood becomes paper becomes wood.
In 2019 she came full circle and began combining paper with wood. By continuing the working practise she had previously employed with each material independently, she marries the two with stunning results. She is fascinated by the expansion and contraction of the two materials and how they move in different environments once they have been worked together into one object.
