“There is a strong sense of nostalgia running through his work, and the viewer is invited to meditate on the transience or passage of life … The contemporary is constantly being constructed on the foundations of the old, eclipsing but still acknowledging that which has gone before, preparing the way for renewal through reinvention and reconstitution...

Simultaneously a painting and a sculpture, brisk strokes of gouache in delicate shades [of blue] eloquently suggest the eternal motion of the rippled water stretching towards the precise line of the horizon … The works on show in Unearthed create a layered language of material, form and concept and they veer between realism and abstraction, demonstrating Cass’s skill and versatility as an artist … Cass carefully selects colours for his palette that harmonize beautifully, which contributes greatly to the overall appeal of his creative offering.”

“David Cass’s ‘Years of Dust and Dry’ [painting] skilfully utilises the found object as the textural ground for painterly and sculptural exploration of a collective human mark. The recurrent motif of a stylised ocean, a rhythmic swell of flattened greenish grey gouache painted on a farmhouse table top, combines the natural effects of time, life and decay with human design and deliberation. Weathered by time and domestic use the bulk of the table top, resting on two small open drawers, is overlaid by an expansive pattern of water. Cass extends this motif in the surface treatment, diminishing the circumference pattern at the edges to seemingly create an expanded world of unconscious aspiration contained in this mass of water, the wood beneath creating imaginative depth in contrast.

It is a poetic image echoed in miniature in a collection of matchboxes and wooden coffee grinder drawers an adjacent cabinet, bone dry elements juxtaposed with an infinite expanse of water. There is something aged about the choice of colour, reminiscent of folk painting and this combined with an almost sculptural quality to the wave pattern gives the work a feeling of connection to generations past, together with a feeling of eternal longing that reaches deep beneath the distressed wooden surface. Cass’s paper film reels and projector are equally intriguing, a dialogue between object and invention; a museum piece coupled with celluloid in a form that cannot illuminate itself. Cass presents a compelling sequence of thought about the mystery of life, knowing and the human condition.”

“David Cass is most definitely an artist worthy of investment. His artworks are gaining significant recognition, yet he remains an affordable & accessible creative talent.”

“And so David’s art is – an elegant, organic fusion of found objects and his own artistic application. A matchbox, which when opened sports a miniature painting. Flea-market found aging postcards – snippets of lives lost – artfully arranged and incorporated into an understated, emotionally authoritative setting. And seascapes. Great glorious seascapes adorning desktops, tabletops, doors…

This care that David has for his immediate, and broader, environment is encapsulated in his art. Although it is not his explicit intention, a profound sensitivity towards the world around him is conveyed, and it is perhaps this, above all else, that gives his work such an unmistakably restorative quality. As he says himself: “I’ve taken somebody’s leftovers and given them new life.” In so doing he takes and renews forgotten and forlorn aspects within each one of us.”

“These fragments of beauty are observations of the mundane, they paint a picture of time passing, and of the multi-layered past that is Venice’s history, the aesthetic quality of each painting, a subject worthy in itself.”

“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.”

“Cass’ thoughtful and moving pieces are all the more powerful in that they are made by someone who was not yet born when the flood waters hit Florence.”

“Cass captures a hint of the desperation of Venice’s rapidly shrinking population trying to carry on their lives between the twin flood tides of tourism and the overflowing Lagoon. In other paintings, however, he looks down from the collage of the walls to the place where they meet the water, but this is not in a sharp dividing line.

Venice is a city of reflections and so if you look at the walls you see the reflected light from the water and if you look at the water you see the reflected walls. Thus his art becomes a metaphor for the unstable balance of fragility and permanence that is one of the world’s most beautiful cities.”

“Without exception, each of David Cass’ artworks describe water in some way. From straight depiction of seas or pools to exploration of environmental extremes in drought and inundation.

[Many recent] works present the issues of modern day Venice in the face of rising sea levels and mass tourism. He is also creating artworks set in the Almería province of Spain: the first location in Europe to witness desertification.

The exchange between wet and dry sits foremost in Cass’ work: not only in these ecologically conscious projects, but also in his choice of materials — mostly watercolour paints applied to antique surfaces sourced throughout Europe.”

“Cass is a citizen of the world who can be at home wherever there is water, weakening memory and wood (or any other surface the artist may paint upon).”

“David Cass uses found wood to make beautiful constructions, but even more strikingly to cut and paint surfaces as though for woodblock printing.”