Dan Rees `In The Ghetto It Gets Cold But We`ve Got Something To Warm Our Soles.`

In The Ghetto It Gets Cold But We`ve Got Something To Warm Our Soles, is the title of the first exhibition in Brussels by British artist Dan Rees. The work is inspired by the history and events of the small Welsh 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 (78,000 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-mining community, deep in the Welsh valleys. The exhibition sees the artist collaborating with fashion photographer Michael Hemy on a series of black and white photographs, also included is a series of vacuum packed paintings and `Artex piantings`, oil paint renditions of Rees`Grandmother`s Artex ceiling.