The Thousands

I suggested a name for Dan Withey’s new show: Dan Withey is Mental. Although when I told him my idea he’d already decided on ‘The House of Dan’, I still think my title’s better. Because he is mental like a goddamn chimp with an Uzi.‘Mental’ here is in the British slang meaning of the term, by the way, and is definitely pronounced ‘men-uhl’. It’s high energy. It’s impulsive. It’s just a little bit silly. And most of all, it’s fun. Dan’s work ticks all of these boxes and lays about forty ticks in the last, and the best way to take it in is to just let your eyes bounce between his paintings; soaking up the super vibrant colours and letting the energy thrumm up through your brain.

There seems to be more to it than just bright toony images, too. Although for the most part Dan’s line work is clean and meticulous, there’s always something a tad frayed around the edges, whether it be the bits of battered-up wood used as canvases, or the odd dribble of spray-paint dotting out the backgrounds. This playful tension between polish and rot gives the art a more tactile – more ‘real’ – feeling than is sometimes found in artists working similar styles.

This show follows on the heels of a hugely successful solo exhibition in Melbourne, and it’s pretty clear at this point that Dan’s a crowd pleaser. Sure there’s a degree of predictability when it comes to his work, but so what? When, like at this show, he’s decked out a gallery with close to a hundred paintings, this consistency is what makes it hang together. Call it concentrated mentalness. I mean ‘mental’ in a nice way, by the way. I mean, how wouldn’t a chimp rattling off an Uzi be fun?