David Cass: PELADA

Artists have been drawn to Venice’s ethereal beauty since time immemorial, including many notable Scots.

Cadell was there in 1910, and Lesley Hunter in the twenties, as was James McBey. After the War Earl Haig (inspired by his Venetian wife) made it his second home; Elizabeth Blackadder and John Houston made many trips there over the years, and today Victoria Crowe has a studio; these and many more have sought Venice out as a place of study and contemplation. Cass has not let the weight of his artistic forebears dictate his direction, however. His gaze, ever particular, has taken him away from the grand vistas and light filled canals to the backstreets, to the crumbling walls and doors at the heart of ‘everyday’ Venice. 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. We are delighted to open our 175th anniversary celebrations with Pełàda.

Tommy Zyw | Director | The Scottish Gallery

6.1.17 - 23.1.17

“Venetian houses as we see them today are the product of countless transformations, reflecting the cultural, social and historical mutations of The Serenissima�

Giulia Foscari

Megio el sbrego che el tacon (better the tear than the patch) 2016 | Oil | 99 x 124 cm | ÂŁ2200 framed

The paintings that make this exhibition are windows through which an alternative look at Venice is offered. These exclusively front-facing works present an exaggerated two-dimensional aspect and feature no glimpse of sky, nor do they describe grand façades. Many are paintings upon paintings — their previous brushwork, marks and details evident under the surface — echoing the actual textures of the city’s layered hide. The majority of the pieces aim to reflect what is most fittingly labelled ‘everyday’ Venice.

Historian Fernand Braudel describes a city’s history as ‘often present in a detail’.

These oil paintings (many of which are painted upon aged papers, pasted onto board) examine a complex city through a lens that focusses on the smallest elements and components. For it is by way of the minutiae — the fragments of Venice’s skin — that the city’s story might be told and the layers of life revealed (as illustrations of doorplates, shop-signs, and buzzers demonstrate). Bricked-up doors, signs upon signs, nameplates over nameplates, an erosion spreading from the water up, and salt-assaulted bricks: “Venetian houses as we see them today are the product of countless transformations, reflecting the cultural, social and historical mutations of The Serenissima” [Giulia Foscari: Elements of Venice]. What period in the history of Venice are we witnessing now, as Venetians rapidly leave their home city?

Many of these works look down, becoming isolated examinations of the zone in which canal meets building (home). Venice is a reptile struggling to shed: while its upper skin has no chance of renewal, thanks to increasingly inelegant pastings designed principally to direct tourists, its lower parts rely on restless rising water to help loosen an uncomfortable outer crust.

II | 2016 | Oil | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | £575 framed

Venice has been (and is being) ill-treated on all fronts. Italy (and Venice, specifically) is regarded the world over as a place of tremendous cultural importance. We have witnessed just how quickly and catastrophically Italian towns — and the myriad architectural pearls they are made of — can ‘disappear’, as in the case of the 2016 earthquake destruction in the centre of the country. Venice is today being destroyed not only by its age and the weight of all it has lived through, upon its plunged wooden-pile foundations, but also by the inundation of visitors, water taxis and giant cruise liners that visit each and every day. On top of that, Venice is also a direct and vulnerable victim of rising sea levels: it is fact that global sea rise is impacting the Adriatic. In February 2017 (mere days after the completion of this exhibition) UNESCO will decide whether or not to place Venice on its list of endangered heritage sites. Then, there’s no turning back.

I am aware that as a visitor, I have little right to comment or speak on behalf of the city’s inhabitants. But as an environmentally conscious artist, I consider it my responsibility to mention the various stages of research that go into each body of work. In a recent Pulitzer Centre podcast, many Venetians who remain claim to feel that their city no longer belongs to them. One describes Venice as a “dying city amongst the waves of the Adriatic”. Venetians are concerned that they will soon end up being seen as an embarrassment in the eyes of the world, if government does not right its wrongs and atone for ignoring (often in the most despicable of ways) these issues, if residents do not stop leaving their homes, if the city succumbs absolutely to its celebrity status.

Street names and directional signs (often vandalised so as to mislead tourists) are sprayed gracelessly to buildings in oversized stencilled font; harsh stabilising chemicals are injected into mortar; anchors are stapled through stone to grab hold

Varòt | 2016 | Oil on card | 28 x 18 cm | £400 unframed

of subsiding walls; agitated water eats away at the city’s ground floors. Venice’s skin therefore — the surface that we see — is in a constant state of transformation, and almost all of today’s modifications are negative and irreversible. Contemporary artists can either ignore the reality of the Venice of today and nostalgically recreate a past that no longer exists, or meet it. And though the paintings assembled here inadvertently celebrate a certain brand of crumbling aesthetic charm (the style to which I am most drawn), at their core lies a more serious message. The paintings that form Pełàda are observations: they celebrate the joy of the everyday through the most mundane of functional and often overlooked elements. At the same time, many of the pieces — in particular, those that illustrate the waterline — aim to establish themselves within the consciousness of the viewer, jolting the brain and asking for reconsideration as something more than a decorative outer coat of multipastel-shaded skin.

David Cass | December 2016

Opposite: XXXII | 2016 | Oil | 20.3 x 20.3 cm | £525 framed

L: XXVIII R: XIV 2016 | Oils | 25.4 x 25.4 cm each | £575 each, framed

Opposite: VI | 2016 | Oil | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | £575 framed

Above: detail of XXVIII

Opposite: XXVI | 2016 | Oil | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | £575 framed

Opposite: I | 2016 | Oil | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | ÂŁ575 framed

Opposite: X | 2016 | Oil | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | ÂŁ575 framed

TL: XIII TR: XXVII BR: XXII BL: VIII 2016 | Oils | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | £575 framed

L: V R: VII 2015 / 2016 | Oils | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | £575 each, framed

Opposite: III | 2016 | Oil | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | £575 framed

XXXIII

XLIV

L

XLIII

2015 / 2016 | Oils | This spread, each 20.3 x 20.3 cm | £525 framed

XXXVI

2016 | Oils | 20.3 x 20.3 cm each | Oils | 2016 | £525 framed

XLI

XLII

XXI

2016 | Oils | 25.4 x 25.4 cm each | £575 framed

IX

IV

2016 | Oils | 25.4 x 25.4 cm each | £575 framed

XVI

Opposite: XX | 2016 | Oil | 25.4 x 25.4 cm | £575 framed Above: XLVIII | 2016 | Oil | 20.3 x 20.3 cm | £525 framed

Hardware Colour | 2016 | Oil | 122 x 40.6 cm (140 x 58.4 cm framed) | £1880

Avanzare | 2016 | Oil | 45 x 35 cm | ÂŁ600 framed

Top: Bóła I / Bottom: Bóła II | 2016 | Oils | 45 x 45 cm each | £800 each

The Scottish Gallery 16 Dundas Street Edinburgh

More works from the exhibition can be seen at: www.scottish-gallery.co.uk Pełàda is the fouth solo show from David Cass ARWS with The Scottish Gallery. The paintings that make this series were created specifically for the gallery’s 175th anniversary, in reference to the rich catalogue of Venice themed works by Scottish artists that the gallery has exhibited throughout its history.

Cass was recently elected an associate of the Royal Watercolour Society. He was awarded a top 2016 Winsor & Newton prize for his Florence in flood series. Recent exhibition venues include Istanbul Modern, MAXXI Museum Rome, and Palazzo Lanfredini, Florence.

More information & sales:

mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk (+44) 0131 558 1200