There’s a New Mural Next Door
The owners of Salvage Boys, Shari and Jaylen Wilson, reached out to Dathan Kane to inquire about him creating a mural for their new location in Downtown Hampton. They introduced Kane to the property owner who loved the idea of a new mural and commissioned Kane to do the work in early 2021 with plans to complete it by the end of summer.
Dathan Kane’s Inspiration for Next Door
Kane admits that he struggles to understand the complexities of modern life, especially how a single choice can have such long-lasting consequences. He hopes that people will view the black and white murals and see themselves in the positive and negative space contained within them. Architecture, design, form, and space also inspire his work.
Perhaps the greatest influence on the artwork of Dathan Kane has been his great-aunt, Katherine Johnson. He has wanted to honor Johnson, who worked as a “human computer” at NASA, with a mural since he was a teenager and visited Virginia’s Air and Space Science Center in Downtown Hampton. He desired to continue his great-aunt’s legacy by developing a mural that is literally next door to the work she did for NASA now housed in the museum.
The Next Door mural has been rewarding for Dathan Kane on a personal level because it helped him to understand his family’s roots in Virginia better. Ultimately, he hopes people see themselves within his work and embrace change in the Hampton Roads downtown area.
More About the Artist
Dathan Kane is a contemporary abstract painter based in Hampton Roads, Virginia, who enjoys the opportunity to express himself using the mural format. He received a BFA degree in Art and Design from Virginia State University in 2014. Kane’s focus while in college was painting and illustration.
Fans of his work notice an ongoing theme of facing life decisions that can have both positive and negative consequences. Dathan Kane prefers to use bold black, white, and organic shapes to represent life’s complexities and attempt to bring balance to them through artistic expression. His artwork has been in demand for years from museums, art galleries, and city planners wanting to develop a mural.
Kane has traveled throughout Virginia and the United States to display his work. In 2017, he had the opportunity to travel to China to display an exhibit at the Sichuan Contemporary Institute. When he is not working on his next project, Dathan Kane serves on the exhibition team at the Contemporary Art Network located in Newport News and is a board member of the Heritage Museum in Norfolk.
Learn more: http://www.dkaneart.com/