Artist: Dan Rees

Canopy Collections present Dreambox of Another Kind, Dan Rees' first solo exhibition in the UK since 2018. Working across painting, photography, and sculpture, Rees has achieved international recognition for a conceptual practice that fuses the language of abstraction with evocations of nostalgia and cultural history.

In Dreambox of Another Kind, Rees extends his ongoing exploration of marbling, a technique traditionally associated with artisanal bookmaking and the decorative arts. Here, marbling becomes a vehicle for subtly subverting aesthetic hierarchies, a hallmark of the artist’s approach. The process itself resists precise control: the chance operations inherent in marbling produce unpredictable surface patterns, which Rees then activates through the careful addition of pencil, charcoal, or crayon. These abstract compositions, at times suggestive of waves, mountains, seaweed, or rock formations, recall the landscapes of Wales, where Rees grew up, while avoiding direct representation.

Rees also engages directly with themes of folk art and craft. Particular attention is given to the works’ framing, which draws on both traditional Adirondack-style design and the geometric motifs of Welsh blankets. These frames function as conceptual extensions of the paintings, acknowledging and recontextualising craft traditions within the language of contemporary abstraction.

“There’s a class commentary embedded in the work,” Rees notes. “Marbling is considered decorative, even kitsch—it belongs to the world of craft. But I’m interested in how those histories intersect with so-called ‘high art.’ Even abstract painting itself has a difficult relation to art and art history; it’s not academic and generally not respected in the same way that figurative works are often fetishised. I consider myself to be a conceptual artist who is invested in abstract painting.”

Intentionally modest in scale, these works stand in quiet defiance of the conventions of large-scale abstract painting, asserting a different kind of presence: intimate, playful, and conceptually rigorous.

Dan Rees’s work is held in public and private collections worldwide including The Bass, Miami; Goss Michael Foundation, Dallas; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. He has exhibited at Centre Pompidou, Paris; MOSTYN, Wales; Nomas Foundation, Rome; GAMeC, Bergamo; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; White Columns, New York; Tanya Leighton, Berlin and LA; Galeria Nuno Centeno, Porto; T293 Gallery, Rome Canopy Collections, London; Standard, Oslo.