David Cass

David Cass was born in Edinburgh and brought up in the Scottish Borders. He graduated with First Class Honours from Edinburgh College of Art in 2010, receiving the Royal Scottish Academy’s John Kinross Scholarship to Florence. Furthermore The Royal Scottish Academy’s Benno Schotz Prize 2018, named work by Cass as the most promising created by a practicing artist in Scotland under 35. The RSA now holds six of his artworks in their permanent collection

Cass is difficult to pigeon-hole as he works across such a wide variety of media: principally he creates three-dimensional paintings using exclusively found objects sourced at flea-markets around Europe – though his practice also involves digital media and sculpture.

Cass has had five solo exhibitions with The Gallery since 2011. At the age of 22, he constructed his inaugural show Unearthed, which was followed by the more conceptual Years of Dust & Dry in 2013. In 2015 Cass created an exhibition describing Florence’s Great Flood of 1966 (Tonight Rain, Tomorrow Mud) and in 2017 we presented the Venice-themed series Pelàda (read Duncan Macmillan’s four star review here).

With each new project, Cass’ exploration into environmental themes deepens. His fifth exhibition Rising Horizon in February 2019 made reference to sea rise, and was a direct step on from Pelàda, zooming out from close examinations of Venice and its rising lagoon, to describe the abstract notion of a rising horizon line.

In this new body of work, David Cass explored the abstract notion of a rising horizon, using beautifully painted seascapes as vehicles to explore themes of global warming and sea rise. Paintings appeared on diverse surfaces such as metal signs, antique tins, a copper boiler and re-formed plastic-waste panels (commissioned by the artist, containing thousands of compressed items of plastic food and drink waste packaging). The catalogue features contributions by Professor David Reay of Edinburgh University and the oceanographer John Englander, click here to purchase the catalogue.