Rising Horizon: Press & Publication
News Coverage
Rising Horizon featured in The Scotsman, The Herald and The Southern Reporter. Click here to read The Scotsman Magazine (Saturday 9th February 2019).
“Water is central to David Cass’ art – it has been a focus ever since he left Edinburgh College of Art in 2010, as has his interest in painting on found objects. His most recent body of work, Rising Horizon, develops this productive vein in a continuing exploration of climate change – and the implication of all its devastating effects - as seen through rising sea levels. Here, on plastic food packaging, advertisement signs, pill tins, hook-on racing car numbers, old paint tins, he paints his seascapes, things of beauty in themselves, celebratory, but also more subtly exploring the terrifying fallout of the Anthropocene.
Cass has worked with themes of inundation and destruction for many years, creating paintings, sculptural pieces and overpaintings that imagine inundation on a vast scale, not least in his studies of Venice and Florence. There is something of the miniaturist in Cass’ work, a focusing in on the detail, no matter what the scale – and that scale ranges from the very small to the very large. He finds his objects at flea markets, salvage yards, antique fairs.
The reformed plastic and metal objects which he uses in this exhibition are a new departure for an artist who has made much of his previous work of, on and from found wood. Sometimes the recycling is not only in the use of the material as a surface upon which to paint, but a reuse of the object itself, as with his use of the oil paints in a 100 year old artist’s box, to paint on its deconstructed exterior. The links with his theme are telling.”
“…now, perhaps more than ever, we need artists such as Cass. Artists, that is, who can at once present us with moments of pleasure when looking upon their work, and yet at the same time offer us reference points for understanding the environmental catastrophe that our own actions represent for the very environment that supports and currently sustains us. That the two can co-exist at one and the same time in any single work (or the body of work as a whole), is commendable, I believe. Where once it was possible to ‘take in’ such art from a position of passivity or non-involvement with the wider backstory that often underpins the work, perhaps we should no longer see this as an option, nor a privilege that is wholly relevant for our times.”
Rising Horizon | Book
£10.00
Publication
The Scottish Gallery has published both a physical and digital catalogue to accompany Rising Horizon, both of which feature on this website, and at scottish-gallery.co.uk/davidcass. The not-for-profit catalogue contains contributions from Professor David Reay of Edinburgh University’s School of GeoSciences, oceanographer and author John Englander and The Gallery’s own Guy Peploe. Purchase a copy in The Scottish Gallery, or by following the link opposite.
Please contact lisa@scottish-gallery.co.uk for further information or to order a signed edition.