Dan Rees
20 Apr - 19 May 2012
DAN REES
In The Ghetto It Gets Cold But We`ve Got Something To Warm Our Soles.
20 April – 19 May 2012
Baronian Francey is happy to annonce the first exhibition in Brussels by British artist Dan Rees. The exhibition is inspired by the history and events of the small Welsh industrail town of Merthyr Tydfil.
The show draws together loose assosiations from different historical events; the revolutionary spirit of the Merthyr Rising, a 3 day armed insurrection in 1831 which saw the red flag being raised for the first time in history as a symbol of proleteriat struggle, the closing of the Hoover factory in 2009 which marked a sad mile stone in a long period of de insturialisation in the town and in 2003 the mass purchasing of white socks (73,000 pairs in one year to a population of 55,000) from the local Asda megastore.
The white sock trend phenomenon led Rees to speculate on the rise of a new subcultural movement in this ex-iron and mining community, deep in the Welsh valleys. The exhibition sees the artist collaorating with fashion photographer Michael Hemy on a series of black and white photographs. Also included is a series of ‘Vacuum paintings’, where canvases are placed into home storgage bags and the air removed with a vacuum cleaner, housed in glass vitrines the paintings will always maintian a certain box freshness. The Artex paintings (oil paint renditions of the Artex patterning that decorates Rees`Grandmother`s ceiling) on the other hand hang directly infront of two Dyson air mulitpliers speeding up the drying process and keeping them cool.
In The Ghetto It Gets Cold But We`ve Got Something To Warm Our Soles.
20 April – 19 May 2012
Baronian Francey is happy to annonce the first exhibition in Brussels by British artist Dan Rees. The exhibition is inspired by the history and events of the small Welsh industrail town of Merthyr Tydfil.
The show draws together loose assosiations from different historical events; the revolutionary spirit of the Merthyr Rising, a 3 day armed insurrection in 1831 which saw the red flag being raised for the first time in history as a symbol of proleteriat struggle, the closing of the Hoover factory in 2009 which marked a sad mile stone in a long period of de insturialisation in the town and in 2003 the mass purchasing of white socks (73,000 pairs in one year to a population of 55,000) from the local Asda megastore.
The white sock trend phenomenon led Rees to speculate on the rise of a new subcultural movement in this ex-iron and mining community, deep in the Welsh valleys. The exhibition sees the artist collaorating with fashion photographer Michael Hemy on a series of black and white photographs. Also included is a series of ‘Vacuum paintings’, where canvases are placed into home storgage bags and the air removed with a vacuum cleaner, housed in glass vitrines the paintings will always maintian a certain box freshness. The Artex paintings (oil paint renditions of the Artex patterning that decorates Rees`Grandmother`s ceiling) on the other hand hang directly infront of two Dyson air mulitpliers speeding up the drying process and keeping them cool.