2024 | Looking Ahead

Two dates for your diaries this year

Next month I’ll exhibit with Tatha Gallery, in their 10th anniversary group show. In September I’ll exhibit with The Scottish Gallery, to celebrate my own milestone: a 10th solo exhibition. Work is already well underway. The show will revisit some of my key projects over the last fourteen years featuring paintings on reclaimed wood and canvas, collections of found-objects, paper and card studies…

 
David Cass
500 Years | Meet the Performers
David Cass
500 Years | Painting + Performance at Christie's

Olfactory exhibition (now closed)

Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast

An innovative sensory exhibition centred around Julius Porcellis’s c.1630 painting Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast curated by Artphilia. Two other Old Masters’ works are included in this display, alongside a painting by David Cass – titled 500 Years (after Porcellis) – which acts as a form of counterpoint to the Dutch Master’s work, visualising a future scenario in which global heating has heightened the severity of storm surges and dramatically altered sea-levels.

Performance (now closed)

500 Years

This month we learned that our planet is on track for almost 3-degrees Celsius of global warming. 500 Years was an immersive performance, imagining sea-level rise across five centuries, from pre-industrial times, to a 3-degree-future. The performance summoned through music what the aforementioned painted work does through paint. Devised by Cass and featuring violinists Aisling O’Dea, Emma Purslow & Anita Vedres, the performance was part of Christie’s December 4th programme Old Masters, New Era.

 
David Cass
Matchboxes in the Studio
 

Since lockdown, I’ve been slowly collecting Scottish Bluebell matchboxes from all corners of the internet – good vintage examples like these are becoming harder and harder to find. If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know what’s happening here. With these boxes, I’m creating miniature seascapes, inspired by the view from my studio here in Athens. Small pieces of found wood are cut to size and inserted into each drawer. These can be purchased online.

 
 
David Cass
Journey for an Exhibition (i)

Menton, August 2023

 

In early August I loaded my van with paintings and set off from Athens – where I’m currently based – destined for Scotland. This is the first long-haul road trip I’ve made since moving to Greece in 2021. An artist’s life involves a lot of logistical planning: artworks need to be regularly moved around, delivered to clients, consigned to galleries. In my own practice, materials also need to be gathered. I don’t paint onto conventional substrates, rather, I re-purpose vintage, well-used household items and objects. But it’s not realistic – or environmentally friendly – to take frequent gathering trips. Activities need to be saved-up and artworks planned well in advance of their display dates. And so, last year I began plotting a multi-purpose trip for summer 2023 from Greece to the UK, that would combine delivering and installing artworks for slow Praxis (September 2023, Tatha Gallery, Scotland); storing the first few pieces for my next solo exhibition in The Scottish Gallery in 2024; collecting artworks from Moncrieff-Bray Gallery (West Sussex, England) which have now been re-consigned to Fry Gallery (Essex, England) for their November 2023 fundraising sale; and throughout the journey north, visiting flea-markets and Brocantes. And, importantly, stopping over in places which are bound to inspire the creation of new artwork.


 

I

Athens ~ Patras ~ Bari

 
 
 

II

Bari ~ Orvieto

 
 

III

Orvieto ~ Lucca

 
 

I first visited Lucca in 2010, on a Royal Scottish Academy scholarship to nearby Florence. Since then I’ve returned a handful of times, including for the Mercato Antiquario Lucchese which takes over the entire city. This time I re-visited many of the locations I’ve drawn and painted previously. On these material gathering trips I generally arrive at each destination in the late afternoon after having driven throughout the day, just in time for golden hour, resulting in photographs of strong light and long shadow.

 
 
 

IV

Lucca ~ Ventimiglia ~ Menton ~ Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

 
 

Between 2014 and 2015 I spent a year living and working in Spain. During that time, I was also working on a pair of exhibition projects in Florence (Perimetri Perduti & “Quest’Arno, Quest’Arno!”) and I would drive across the south of France and into Italy, discovering places to stop on route. As I approached Italy, Ventimiglia old town became a favourite place to stay, which I painted often.

 
 
 

V

Roquebrune-Cap-Martin ~ Marseille ~ Aix-en-Provence

 
 
 

VI

Aix-en-Provence ~ Luberon ~ L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

 
 

Located in Provence, one of France’s most beautiful regions, the key gathering point for this trip was L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and the annual Antiques Festival. Provence boasts dozens of carefully preserved historic villages, galleries, regular markets and an abundance of Brocantes. The medieval villages of the Luberon, known for their purity of light, are well worth exploring; with Lacoste of particular note, the campus of international art school SCAD.

 
 
 

VII

L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

· International Antiques Festival 2023

 
 

This is my second time visiting L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue to gather materials. Almost the whole town is transformed during the fair. Here, I purchased some of the most iconic surfaces of my career. The painted wooden door that was used to advertise Years of Dust & Dry in 2013 came from here. This time I collected coffee-grinders (their drawers make the idea painting surface), shutters, boxes, signage, pattern stamps, and more.

 
 
 

VIII

Carpentras ~ Gordes ~ Roussillon ~ Apt

· Gare Écoparc Grand Vide-Grenier, Carpentras
· La Belle Brocante, Apt

 
 
 
 

IX

Provence ~ Paris

· Le Village Saint Paul
· Marche aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves

 
 

My first stop in Paris, in the heart of the Marais between Rue Saint Antoine and the Seine, was the Village Saint Paul, which comprises over eighty designers, antique dealers and galleries. The antique shops here have a focus on collectibles and smaller-scale items. I purchased vintage stationery, frames and small wooden boxes (postage, glasses, domino and card-boxes). My last stop before leaving the city was the Porte de Vanves flea-market, my favourite of the markets around Paris’ Boulevard Périphérique.

 
 
 

IX

Paris ~ Fife, Scotland

· Exhibition: slow Praxis

 
 

My first days back home in Scotland were spent at Tatha Gallery in Newport-on-Tay, helping with the installation of Slow Praxis (read more in my previous blog post). It felt fitting to work on this upon arrival, after the slow journey north and much time to reflect on my own practice and the theme of the exhibition. I’ve always strived to work slowly and patiently – many of my processes just don’t allow for any alternative – but the last two years have been so busy that finding the space to slow and fully immerse has been difficult. When there’s lots on, time seems to fly. After almost a month on the road, engaging with the work of my fellow exhibitors and cementing the concept of the show offered a chance to reboot, refresh.

For me, the process of gathering materials is equally as important as that of applying paint. So, the resulting artworks are layered, not only with paint, but with the memory of where the substrate was found, the traces of its past life.

 
 

The opening day: Slow Praxis

Slow Praxis | an exhibition visitor with Iain Stewart’s seascape photographs

David Cass
Journey for an Exhibition (ii)
 

XI

Scotland ~ Brussels

· Jeu de Balle Flea Market
· Rue Blaes Antique Shops

 
 

With paintings delivered and exhibition installed, I collected further items and objects for the studio in Scotland and set off on my return journey to Greece. I took a different route, this time via Belgium so that I could visit Brussels and the Jeu de Balle flea-market. In late 2010 and 2011 I lived in Brussels, just ten minutes from this famous daily market. It was during this time that my love for gathering and use of found materials formed strong foundations. The vendors here mostly deal in house clearances and so you’ll find antique furniture alongside boxes of family photographs, collections of matchboxes, cameras, postcards, letters. I often wonder, when visiting markets like this, how it can be that there’s nobody to inherit these items? How boxes and albums of precious family history can be left out in all weathers for unknown tourists to rummage through. Just along from the market is the Rue Blaes, where every other shop is an antique shop. I spent a weekend ferrying bags of miscellanea between the market and my hotel.

 
 
 

XII

Brussels ~ Strasbourg

 
 

XIII

Strasbourg ~ Parma ~ Tivoli

 
 
 

I’m drawn to places with crumbling charm like Tivoli, just outside of Rome. I paint onto old doors and shutters, but I’m also inspired by peeling facades and faded paintwork. In my most recent abstract mixed-media paintings, my mark-making style aims to mimic these textures, informed by years of studying buildings like these close-up.

 
 
 

XIV

Tivoli ~ Ostuni

 
 
 

XV

Ostuni ~ Brindisi ~ Igoumenitsa

 
 
 

XVI

Igoumenitsa ~ Athens

 
 

I called this pair of blog posts Journey for an Exhibition in reference to Journey of an Artwork. That online exhibition describes the general creation process of an exhibition, from the flea-market to the studio, to the finished exhibition. These blog posts follow the delivery of an exhibition, and the gathering for another. In September 2024 I’ll present a solo exhibition in The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, using the materials gathered on this trip, and in America earlier this year.

 
 
David Cass
Slow Praxis
 

Slow Praxis champions the work of artists whose practices and processes follow a more unconventional path; who create works which encourage us to slow and take notice of the world around us. For many of these artists, the process of creation is perhaps equally as important as the final result. These artists go a step beyond, uncovering extra levels of depth, researching and then acting; and this attention to detail provides us, the audience, with the feeling that we can more easily enter into these works.

 
 
 

Tatha Gallery’s aim for this show was to explore the climate crisis. But, we wanted to approach the subject from an alternative angle. It’s impossible not to be aware of the plethora of issues we currently face as our planet’s average temperature gradually rises. Just look at the summer of wildfires we’ve witnessed around the world. Artists are in a unique position, able to highlight these issues but without leading us into despair. Instead, these artworks quietly suggest the need for a slower pace. If we are to move away from irreversible climate change, we must take our foot off the accelerator, notice and attend to the small changes in the natural world around us, exercise restraint as often as possible.

 
 

Stuart Cairns

David Cass

Roland Fraser

Jean Gillespie

Rita Kermack

Vivian Ross-Smith

Samuel Sparrow

Tim Steward

Iain Stewart

 
 

Above: Cass, Cairns, Sparrow, Gillespie, Fraser, Steward, Cermack, Stewart | All artworks © the artists, images by Cass

 
 
Dear friends, would you look, only look, at what is here, and would you agree to astonishment, and to love? For love, allied to attention, will be urgently needed in the years to come
— Katherine Rundell
 
 
 
David Cass
Curatorial Projects
 

Over the last few years, I’ve added curatorial endeavours to my art practice, as my exploration of environmental issues has evolved. It’s my firm belief that if we are to step away from runaway climate change, this kind of collaborative and accessible creative exchange is vital. And, as I’ve talked about before, artists are in a unique position in being able to engagingly present climate data.


 
 
 

Points of Return

 

I’m recently back from the USA, where we presented the group exhibition Points of Return, a large scale exhibition discussing the climate crisis, at The Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, MA. The exhibition – which I co-curated with artist Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar Romero – featured a versatile group of 27 artists, each offering perspectives on the state of our Earth. As the exhibition title suggests, our aim was to offer optimism, to highlight restorative strategies and sustainable pathways forward. We connected with hundreds of visitors through a series of tours, screenings, performances, talks and discussions.

Highlights include a day dedicated to Elizabeth Ogilvie & Robert Page’s project Into the Oceanic; a sound bath performance by Amy Duncan; an exclusive preview of Earthwatch founder Brian Rosborough’s Call of the Orcas (directed by Jessica Plumb); and, a lecture centered around the exhibition’s location by Dr Joseph Donica. Though now closed, you can still take a virtual tour of the exhibition online, and explore the dedicated webpage – which will be added to in the coming weeks.

Immediately upon returning I began working with Tatha Gallery (Fife, Scotland), collaborating on the curation of Slow Praxis, another environmental exhibition, this time presenting artists whose work encourages us to slow and take notice.

 
 
As visually intriguing as the installations comprising ‘Points of Return’ [were], the narratives surrounding such thought-provoking work [were] equally fascinating.
— Pamela Ellertson, Art New England
 
 
 
 
Noticing the small changes requires the kind of communion that comes from knowing deeply … just when we needed to slow down and notice the subtle changes in the natural world that are telling us that something is seriously amiss, we have sped up, entered into the perpetual feed of the never-ending-now, slicing and dicing our attention spans as never before.
— This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein 
 
 
 

Slow Praxis

 

I’m delighted to have been invited to co-curate – and exhibit in – this show, and to work with fellow artists I’ve long admired, including some whose works I’ve previously curated or covered: Vivian Ross-Smith (Coast, exhibition, 2019), Stuart Cairns (Coast, exhibition, 2019), Roland Fraser (Surface II, virtual exhibition, 2020), Tim Steward (A La Luz, article, 2020), Jean Gillespie (A La Luz, article, 2023), Rita Kermack, Samuel Sparrow, and my art school photography tutor Iain Stewart, whose work has been a huge influence on my own. Though focussed on the topic of climate change, this is not an exhibition of despair or sweeping gestures imploring desperately that we solve the climate conundrum, rather, it’s an exhibition about slowing down, living sustainably and within our means, using and re-using what we already have, observing, listening deeply, and importantly, exercising restraint – perhaps the most powerful achievable strategy we as individuals have at our disposal. Aristotle wrote: ‘what it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.’ If we are to have a chance of moving away from a future characterised by extreme weather events and biodiversity loss, we must be mindful of the long-term impacts of our actions on the world around us. We must, like the artists in this exhibition, approach from alternative angles and question established processes.

The content of the exhibition will remain under wraps for a few weeks more, but I will release my own inclusions: a new series of mixed media works painted onto repurposed industrial canvases and large-format nautical maps. View three below, and a further selection on this new webpage.

 
 
 
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
 
 
 

Selected Curatorial Projects: 2017 – today

Foreign Familiar 2017 (curator)

As Coastline is to Ocean 2019 (co-curator)

Coast 2019 (co-curator)

Surface (II) 2020 (curator)

The Sea from Here 2020 (curator)

Points of Return (I & II) 2021 – 2023 (co-curator)

Into the Oceanic: Double Screening 2023 (co-curator)

Slow Praxis 2023 (co-curator)

The Sea from Here (II) TBC (curator)

David Cass
Where Once the Waters: Concord, MA
 

On May 1st, Points of Return opened in The Umbrella Arts Center, Massachusetts (USA). I designed this exhibition with artist and long-term collaborator Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar Romero, as part of our ongoing curatorial project A La Luz. Through dynamic display and crossing several artistic disciplines, this 27-artist show provides commentary, reflection, and creative restorative strategies in the face of the climate emergency.

By showcasing diverse perspectives, providing accessible data, and encouraging critical thinking, we hope to inspire a sense of possibility in this exhibition; a renewed commitment to shaping a better future. The artists involved have immersed themselves in jungles, marshlands, deserts, oceans and forests. They have researched and documented how even the most remote and inaccessible environments have the fingerprints of human activity. Through their immersion, they’ve become vessels for telling; for raising awareness and understanding.

My own artwork in the exhibition is an updated instalment of Where Once the Waters, first presented at last year’s Venice Biennale, focussed on the issue of rising sea levels.

In the United States, almost thirty percent of the population lives in relatively high population-density coastal land, where sea level plays a role in flooding, shoreline erosion, and hazards from storms. Globally, eight of the world’s ten largest cities are located near a coastline. Predicting exact levels of future sea rise around the world is difficult, but the facts are plain—sea levels will continue to rise at an ever faster rate with every passing year for many decades. It’s a process which is now locked-in. We cannot stop the rise, but we can take action now to limit the level the water will reach in decades (and centuries) to come.

The Massachusetts coastline is particularly vulnerable, with sea level up to 212mm (8.3 inches) higher than it was in 1950. The region has coastal wetlands and beaches that offer a level of protection to communities and wildlife, but these natural barriers are themselves at risk. One third of New England’s coastal wetlands have already been lost due to human activity, which makes preserving the remaining wetlands urgent. Furthermore, tidal flooding has increased by 333% across Massachusetts since 2000, rendering over 27,500 properties at risk.

When I last exhibited Where Once the Waters, a few exhibition visitors commented that “sea levels have always gone up and down…” And this is true. Over tens of thousands of years, they have. But levels are rising several times faster today than they have in the past three millennia as a direct result of human-induced global warming. We have accelerated what would have occurred naturally, which means we have significantly less time to adapt.

From 1870 to 1924 sea levels were rising at an average global rate of 0.8mm/yr. From 1925 to 1992 sea level rise more than doubled to 1.9mm/yr. From 1993 to mid-2012, sea levels were rising at a rate of 3.1mm/yr, and as of November 2022, NASA tells us that the average global rate of rise is around 4mm/yr. But the rate of rise is not evenly distributed around the globe. Some locations are experiencing more frequent inundation and severe coastal changes than others. Tide gauges around the world can reasonably chart trends in sea level, and it was data from these measurement devices that informed my letter-writing project.

This project looks back upon sea level changes which have already occurred, for unlike future predictions, these can be more accurately charted. Each letter offers “the reader” data relating to the shores which lie nearest their places of birth. This issue is often shrouded in complex science, but the opportunity to engage on a more individual level could be one point of return. Bringing home the data behind climate change lies at the core of the project and is indeed one key aim of the overall exhibition.

Our coastlines are windows to the past, present, and future. Being on the front-line, they are perhaps our clearest indicators of change. This project describes how they are retreating, eroding, sinking, and even lifting as water warms and swells, each letter offering figures (measurements) we might visualise.

The letters range in pace and tone, presented without apparent categorisation, for, this issue is not exclusive to any one location. The decision to use exclusively found, vintage materials provides one suggestion of how we can move forward: by caring for our resources and re-using what we already have. To further personalise the subject, the letters are typed onto familiar papers, those which would have accompanied people through their lives: correspondences, birth certificates, documents, wills, deeds… items which have lived through these changes in our waters. A wooden letter sits in front of the apparently unfinished installation, a suggestion that the issue (and the project) is ongoing.

 
David Cass
Contemporary

A Group Exhibition at The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2.2.23—25.2.23

100 Days

Installation designed by David Cass (2023)
Painted 2018–2022
Found antique metal tins & boxes up to ~130 years old

Now open at The Scottish Gallery, Contemporary includes seven versatile artists whose works explore contrasting elements of modern life, each with their foundation in the natural environment. I’m exhibiting a selection of one hundred “days” from my Where Once the Waters series – originally presented at the 2022 Venice Biennale as the portrait of one year at sea – alongside two seascapes painted upon antique canvas created during lockdown in 2020 and exhibited for the first time here. Two further pieces from my Rising Horizon series – the project that inspired Where Once the Waters – can also be found, and the gallery has a trio of gouache seascapes painted onto wooden drawers viewable upon request.

David Cass
The Year in Numbers
 

This was perhaps my busiest year in the studio, as my exploration of environmental themes has deepened. The highlight of 2022—the highlight of my career thus far—was presenting Where Once the Waters at Venice Biennale. I consider the exhibition to have been a success, but it did of course come with its own set of challenges. The project has continued to grow, with additional features and reconfigured installations planned. This is an art project which reads best from a distance; it’s an ongoing pursuit, made from multiple parts.

Here’s a summary of the year in numbers.

 

25
Artists

2022 kicked off with the curatorial project Points of Return. Some of you may know, I co-run an eco-art initiative with artist Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar. We share and curate climate focussed artworks in a blog and virtual gallery. Points of Return presents artworks by 25 international creatives, in a digital exhibition aimed at both raising awareness and offering nature based strategies which address the dreaded “point of no return”—the point at which irreversible climate change will be locked-in. The virtual exhibition will remain online indefinitely.

 

365 Seascapes
600 Letters

Discovering the opportunities we have within reach for combatting aspects of the climate crisis also lies at the core of Where Once the Waters. Here, the aim has been to invite people to reflect, on their own terms, upon the changes happening at places we may feel some connection to. I believe that we have a better chance of engaging with aspects of climate change if we can do this in a personal way. In this vein, in May I opened a small solo exhibition—principally discussing the topic of rising sea levels—at the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale. The exhibition comprised two installation artworks formed of many small parts. One group of Letters (typed antique papers addressed to people around the world) offered readers insights into our changing coastlines; while a group of miniature seascapes spoke of sustainability and the need to care for our resources. Over the course of its display, Where Once the Waters was well received by visitors and media, with regular exhibition tours and discussions. In time, I’ll digitise the Letters so that everyone can read them. You can also take part.

 

5
Letters

My aim is to further disperse the themes behind Where Once the Waters, and this means presenting offshoots of the project in different venues and formats. Five framed Letters were exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show in London, some of which explained changes in the level of the River Thames. Just like our seas, rivers, estuaries and lakes will also be impacted as our planet’s global average temperature rises.

 

6 Days
9 Days
12 Days

A collection of 365 painted seascapes are included in Where Once the Waters, each named for a day of the year. The decision to paint one year of sea references the record breaking ocean temperatures we’re experiencing year-on-year. These have been split into smaller groupings and displayed with The Auction Collective, Tatha Gallery and the Fry Art Society. Each seascape has been painted onto an antique metal box or tin. Twenty are currently available for sale online. It is the sale of these works which funds my conceptual projects.

 

2
Billboards

So far over 600 Letters have been typed onto an assortment of found papers, addressed to people around the world, each offering a sea-level “reading”. These letters aren’t sent (at least not in their physical form), they’re added to a growing collection. A Letter to Rhea was enlarged and presented in billboard format in Brooklyn, New York, thanks to the I AM WATER campaign; a Letter to Mesi was digitally screened during COP27 in Egypt thanks to IkonoTV. This is a different way to present the information the letters contain, specifically addressed to locals. If we know what is happening locally, we stand a better chance of meeting that issue. Climate change shouldn’t feel “far off” and issues such as sea-level rise could impact us all, regardless of where we live. We need to be discussing this more.

 

10
Films

For the third time, I presented digital works during COP (the annual United Nations climate conference). This year I created a pair of new video artworks, each exploring localised variations in sea-level rise, contributing to the conversation started in Venice. These were screened in Sharm El-Sheikh in the COP27 Green Zone, and streamed online alongside eight other films. From January these will reside permanently on the IkonoTV website. IkonoTV shares an exciting variety of artists’ films. Currently they’re featuring Francis Alÿs’s Children’s Games, a standout series presented at Venice Biennale and perfect to enjoy over the holidays.

 

2
Books

As well as the book created to accompany Where Once the Waters, this year I featured in Out of the Box: A Celebration of Contemporary Box Art. This is a joyful publication, packed full of fascinating artists bound by a love of collecting.

 

100
Days

Looking ahead to next February, I’m excited to present a group of 100 miniature seascapes from Where Once the Waters as part of the Scottish Gallery group exhibition Contemporary. Further details will be announced soon.

Online exhibition Points of Return

Painted antique tins from a series of 365

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022

Billboards: Brooklyn & COP27

Where Once the Waters book

Out of the Box book

100 Days destined for The Scottish Gallery

David Cass
Collecting is a Kind of Poetry
Collecting is a kind of poetry: it’s a shuffling around of objects and spaces until they make sense.
— Edmund de Waal

I’m thrilled to be part of Tom Buchanan’s colossal project Out of the Box. A journey which started as a series of exhibitions has evolved into a weighty and beautifully composed art book. A compendium of creative works grouped together by the very nature that they themselves are groupings: artworks made from multiple parts, bound by a definite perimeter.

The book is truly a box within a box within a box. The author – an artist himself – has spent years collecting creatives whose works fit within the grand container of the project. No two the same. Simultaneously, he has collected his thoughts, gathering stories and remarks along the way (I particularly enjoy the de Waal quote above, taken from Buchanan’s preface, and Roger Ackling’s quiet reflection on my own page (p.27) that “rituals performed in private change the face of the world”) arriving at something which can only be described as a book to house the ultimate collection of collections.

“As a rule,” the author writes, “creatives tend to be voracious collectors. Seeking, locating, acquiring, classifying, cataloguing, storing, and displaying are all vital practices to aid the artistic soul. However determined these activities might appear to others, they provide some kind of ordered path through the everyday…”

I’m taken back to my pre-art-school self with this book, devouring its pages much as I did with Art Now and The Art Book. Books that you’d browse in order to help you understand yourself as a creative, what excited you. And I’m then transported to the artist I was soon after graduation, struggling to navigate post-art-school life, creating compilation artworks with old boxes and drawers as their frames, finding stability within a physical boundary, organising and ordering my collected artefacts in a way that did indeed help me find a path “through the everyday.”

Maybe a box can help us let go, or allow us to question the very interior of things…
— Tom Buchanan

I think more than anything else, I’m moved by this book because you can tell that the entire endeavour has been pursued with a heartfelt passion. This is more than a who’s who of box-artists, this is an artwork in its own right. And for me, the cherry on the top is that the author notes our “need to upcycle”, to use and re-use what we already have, what we can find, and how box-art plays perfectly to that sustainable brief (Mark Thurgood’s Collecting Yellow, captioned as “nearly all plastic waste found on one Cornish beach over ten years” is just one such example). Box-art, then, is “an alternative space, filled to the brim with potential…” (Sarah Lea: Box Art – An Art-Historical Context)

Pages 26 & 27 | Chapter I: Water | L: Matchbox Seascape (2020) R: So Many Endings (2012–13)

 
David Cass
Pairings

“Each painting contains a different body of water, where the horizon line, time of day, and weather conditions vary in every unique view”, writes Kate Reeve-Edwards in Where Once the Waters. “The painting process reacts and enhances the objects, working with them to create a new life […] A circular ecosystem of reuse and repair is what Cass is gently encouraging. The hand-held world of the tin is regenerated: these small objects which once contained tobacco, mints, or teabags now convey new, bigger ideas.” These artworks look to the past, to the years they’ve spent on this Earth. At the same time, they pay homage to the sea, a great muse to so many. They speak of function, process and time passing; of the tide that daily enters and exits Venice, as it has done for over a millennium. Find below a selection, photographed around Venice.

David Cass
Where Once the Waters: the Book

I’m thrilled to launch the Where Once the Waters book. It’s been a real labour of love, well over a year in the making, and I couldn’t be happier with the result. More than a simple record of the exhibition in Venice, it’s also a log of my paintings and research, accompanied by texts from three fantastic authors – Kate Reeve-Edwards, Patricia Emison and David Gange – printed onto beautiful, recycled papers.

The book has been produced independently and so please help me to share it far and wide. Orders placed between now and December come with a 15% discount code on online painting purchases.

Limited edition of 200 | 222 pages

Follow #WhereOncetheWaters on Instagram

David Cass
New York Billboard

An exciting development for the ongoing project Where Once the Waters – one of my sea-level letters has made it onto a billboard in Brooklyn, New York thanks to the @ecoartspace + @ourhumanitymatters I AM WATER campaign.

This enlarged letter explains to Rhea – a participant in my sea-level survey – how much the level of the water here, just behind the billboard, has risen across her lifetime.

Photography: Juan Cuartas Rueda | Location: Sunset Park, Brooklyn, 39th Street & 4th Avenue

 
David Cass
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022

I’m delighted to have two works included in the RA Summer Exhibition 2022. The two pieces come from the same ongoing series – Where Once the Waters. This project explores variations in rates of sea, lake and river rise around the world caused by global heating. We know that water levels around the word are rising (as our planet warms, our waters store much of the excess heat) but the rate of rise from place to place is not even. Some locations will experience more immediate and significant change, and more frequent inundation.

In a single framed letter (see below: Letter to Claire (Sea Level Reading: Boston MA) Claire is informed that since her birth year of 1975, the sea level at her birthplace of Boston has risen by 130mm. The idea here is to offer people personalised sea level “readings”. Perhaps by knowing what is happening at a coastline we are connected to will influence the way in which we engage with this aspect of the climate crisis.

In a set of framed letters (Thames Letters) four Summer Exhibition jury members born in or near London are informed of the effects of sea level rise on the Thames across their lifetimes. We know that seas are rising around the world, but the impact on rivers is less frequently discussed. Rising waters will impact coastlines and riverbanks around the UK, but one place which is particularly at risk is London.

The Thames is a partially tidal river, and so changes in sea level directly impact the level of the Thames, despite the protection offered by the Thames Barrier. A recent report published by the Environment Agency tells us that ‘sea levels are increasing in the Thames Estuary and could rise by as much as 1.15 metres by 2100 under the higher climate change scenario from UKCP18’.

Furthermore, the southern part of the UK is lowering, tilting downward, seeming to accelerate the rate that the water is rising. Thus, London faces a twin tide in this time of climate breakdown. Urgent action must be taken. These letters, part of a larger project addressing hundreds of individuals around the world, aim to offer entry points – accessible data – bringing home a globally significant issue.

Thames Letters I-IV
Typed vintage papers found in London · 2022


Thames Letter I

Dear Conrad,

You were born in London in 1977.

Across your lifetime, the Thames has risen by at least 73mm.

As a result of climate change and warming waters around the globe, sea levels are rising. But the impact on rivers is less frequently discussed.

In London’s case specifically, the Thames Barrier offers protection from extreme high tides and storm surge events, and quite possibly from a reshaping of the city.

Yet, the Barrier was not intended to protect against sea level rise (Humphreys, 2018). When designed and built, it was expected to be used 2-3 times per year. That rate of use has more than doubled during the 2000s (UNESCO, 2020). As the effects of climate change continue to create higher sea levels and increased storms the Barrier may not be enough to protect London.

How might the city respond to more frequent episodes of flooding, like those of Venice’s “acqua alta” for example?

Thames Letter II

Dear Stephen,

In your birthplace of London, the height of the Thames – a mostly tidal river, subject to the same fluctuations in level as the sea at the nearby east coast ¬– has climbed by approx. 98mm since your birth year of 1960.

Rising sea levels will impact coastlines and riverbanks around the UK, but one place which is particularly at risk is London.

A new analysis, carried out for the Mayor of London, tells us that ‘areas such as Vauxhall, Earls Court and Kings Cross are at high risk of floods’ and that ‘as water levels creep up, almost half of all hospitals and 20% of schools across London will be at risk of flooding.’

 

Thames Letter III

Dear Grayson,

You were born not far from London in 1960.

Believe it or not, the early River Thames once flowed through your birthplace.

According to the tide gauge at Tower Pier, we can see that the level of the river has climbed in the region of 10cm across your lifetime to date. Readings from the coast, at Sheerness and Southend agree. We could call this your own personal “sea level calculation”.

Generally, rising sea levels will shift the way that rivers naturally chart their path to the shoreline. The Thames is a partially tidal river, and so changes in sea level directly impact its height.

A recent report published by the Environment Agency tells us that if emissions targets are not met, that rise could be ‘as much as 1.15 metres by 2100’.

The window for action is quickly closing, for, like a pot of water on the stove, the water remains warm long after the gas is turned off.

Thames Letter IV

Dear Bill,

The Thames runs through your birthplace of Henley. Since your birth year of 1948, the river has risen by approx. 115mm.

The south of England faces a twin tide in this time of climate breakdown.

  • Based on data interpretation by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, we can see that the relative water level trend is +1.43 mm/year for the river Thames at Tower Pier; plus an extra millimetre per year from 2013 (according to the 2018 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society “State of the Climate report”).

  • Combine this with the fact that, around 11,500 years ago, the ice sheets which covered the north of the British Isles began to retreat. The land that had been covered in ice continues to rise – or, spring back – in reaction to the removed ice’s weight. As this rise occurs in the north a downward tilt occurs in the south, seeming to further accelerate the rate that water levels rise relative to the land.

We all must be able to enter into the science. These letters – part of a larger project addressing individuals around the world – aim to offer entry points, bringing home a globally significant issue.

David Cass
New Webpage

I’m pleased to share a new webpage for Where Once the Waters, so that the exhibition can live on in virtual format.

Here, we’ll also list future showings of the series. Browse photography, texts by myself and others, feedback, film, available works from the series and find a link to the ongoing project survey. You can also purchase the much anticipated exhibition book.

David Cass
Journey to & from the Biennale

Now that I’ve sorted through the exhibition documentation of Where Once the Waters, I’m dedicating a little time to other images taken during April, May & June. Here are photographs taken during the journey to and from Venice. From the studio in Athens, via Patras, Fermo and Chioggia on the outward route, and Lecce on the return.

The entire journey was offset

 

Night Ferry: Patras — Bari

Fermo

 

Chioggia

 

Venice | First Days

 

Lecce

 
 
David Cass
Exhibition eBook

Today I’m sharing an excerpt of the exhibition book, created in advance of my Venice Biennale exhibition Where Once the Waters. The book will be, in its own right, a key part of the project I’ve been working on over the last few years – a place to present the ideas that have driven the work. The artwork photographs, for example, go beyond simple documentation, with some paintings set against textures of industrial steel doors in metalworks and factories or placed upon the upturned hulls of abandoned and disintegrating fibreglass boats, found along the shoreline, hinting at issues of pollution and over-consumption. The book’s texts have been placed to suggest a journey, from the Outer Hebrides (the location of my previous exhibition Horizon Rising at Taigh Chearsabhagh Arts Centre) to Venice, with hundreds of virtual stops at coastlines in between.

The overriding theme of the book – and indeed the exhibition as a whole – is sea level rise. To be more specific, localised variations in sea level rise caused by anthropogenic climate warming. In this project, I’m attempting to “bring home” a globally significant issue, by offering personalised and relatable figures, and intimately presenting artworks that encourage discussion on an issue which will touch us all.

The digital version features sample texts, and selected artworks from the two installation pieces created for Venice. A hardcopy is scheduled for late August / early September 2022, and will provide a more comprehensive summary of the exhibition after its conclusion.

Text by: Becky Campbell, Patricia Emison, David Gange & Kate Reeve-Edwards

There is no better distillation of these messages and their aesthetic power than the art of David Cass.
— David Gange
The exhibition makes concrete our need for purposefulness, our need to protect a delicate symbiosis with the planet.
— Patricia Emison
Through art, scientific data can be presented in an engaging way; it is a mobilising medium.
— Kate Reeve-Edwards
 
David Cass
Pre-Release

In just two weeks, Where Once the Waters will open at the Venice Biennale. The exhibition presents a connected pair of art projects, exploring changes in our oceans and along our coastlines caused by global heating. The artworks are the result of over three years of researching, surveying and painting.

One features intimate illustrations of sea, painted upon antique tins, each with a horizon at a different level; the other is formed of several hundred personally addressed letters, describing localised variations in sea level. Installed in an engaging and accessible manner, together, the projects aim to bring home an issue which will inevitably touch us all – in Venice, a city familiar with the mercurial motions of water.

In advance of the exhibition, a selection of the paintings have been brought online, available for purchase. ‘Each painting contains a different body of water, where the horizon line, time of day, and weather conditions vary in every unique view’, writes Kate Reeve-Edwards in the forthcoming exhibition book. ‘The painting process reacts and enhances the objects, working with them to create a new life […] A circular ecosystem of reuse and repair is what Cass is gently encouraging. The hand-held world of the tin is regenerated: these small objects which once contained tobacco, mints, or teabags now convey new, bigger ideas.”

 
27th May
£235.00
 
David Cass