Today we're highlighting another Mondo artist, Lane Bennion.  Lane is a phenomenal artist who enjoys "finding beauty or poetry in the most mundane of objects, situations or scenes."  His work typically portrays the mannequins or merchandise in a storefront. Some artists who have influenced Lane's work include Edward Hopper, Wayne Thiebaud, Paul Davis, David Dornan, and Doug Braithwaite.  Each of these artists have influenced Lane's paintings and subject matter.  Lane says David Dornan "challenged me to find poetry in the most mundane objects and scenes.  [He is] one of the most inspiring people I know." Other artists that Lane likes vary in style and subject matter including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Francis Bacon, John Singer Sargent, Richard Diebenkorn, Odd Nerdrum, and Gustave Dore. Lane says that he also loves artwork from classic space age and sci-fi magazines in the 1950s and 60s or scenes from Warner Brothers cartoons in the 1940s and 50s.  He sites a number of films and film makers: Classic Star Trek (and only Classic), Star Wars: A New Hope, Alice in Wonderland, animated shorts from 1970s Sesame Street (click here to view), and filmmakers David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick "How do these influences bring me to paint Store Fronts?  I don't really know.  I seem to like to study strange and fantastic things so I guess I find these stores strange and fantastic." Click HERE to see some of Lane Bennion's paintings.