I’m currently between studios, searching for the next workspace to transform. While I can’t offer an in-person studio visit at this time, I can offer this equivalent, designed as a virtual exhibition, ordered by Objet (object). Here, find new and recent water artworks painted onto a range of unique, diligently gathered found objects: bus blinds from Brussels, textile stamps from London, wooden boxes from Paris, marine pulleys from New England. Smaller works can be bought directly online and larger works discussed via phone or email. All of the pieces displayed below are shipped from the UK.

Every painting on this page carries the gift of clean and safe drinking water for one person in need in a developing country – for life – via one of my favourite charities, charity: water.

Every artwork on this webpage is made from reclaimed, recycled materials – usually of a functional nature. The banner image above features wooden marine pulleys found in the antiques barns of New England, photographed before transformation. The below slideshow carries images from flea markets in France and Belgium, visited this year and last. More recent gathering images can be found on my blog, alongside photographs of the journey.

Tins have been a favourite item in the studio since 2017. My first set was exhibited in Rising Horizon in 2019, each named for a different sea. By 2020 I had amassed a large collection of tins, which became my principal focus during lockdown in 2020 & 21. Working from a small studio, these hand-held antique vessels became a daily ritual. By the end of lockdown and after a move to a larger studio (by the sea) I had set myself a goal the painting 365 of them – one for each day of the year. I completed the series in 2022 and exhibited them at Venice Biennale.

Today, sixty-five of that original series remain, now back in the studio after exhibitions around the UK and further afield. One from the original 2017 series also remains, painted on a uniquely shaped S. Pellegrino tin for magnesium found in Florence, Italy (opposite). This first tin is box-framed with reflection-free museum glass.

The remaining unframed tins have been carefully grouped into clusters: 5 Days, 10 Days & 50 Days.

These miniatures pay homage to the sea. They speak of time past, present and future; of function and the daily coming and going of the tide. These fleeting moments come together to describe a bigger picture, a collective memory.

“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. “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...”

Delivery & installation is possible.

Like those listed at the top of the webpage, these pieces – also painted onto a mix of canvas and board – are each hand-framed in stained oak. The majority of these paintings use bus-blinds as their surface, found mostly in Brussels. Bus-blinds are a type of “roll sign”, made of canvas or linen. Pre-digital, they would have been rotated by the driver (of a bus or tram) to indicate the direction of travel. Unrolled and pasted to board (or stretched like a canvas) they become an ideal recycled surface for painting onto.

Learn more about the kind of works featured in this virtual exhibition in these three books. My largest volume, Where Once the Waters, was created as a place to compile not only images of the exhibition in Venice – featuring 365 tin paintings – but the research involved in producing the project. Rising Horizon and Light on Water were published by The Scottish Gallery to accompany exhibitions of the same names, of seascapes painted onto found objects.

An opportunity to purchase from my letters series. In this set (exhibited in the RA Summer Exhibition) four individuals – born in or near London – are informed of the effects of sea level rise on the River Thames across their lifetimes. They’re part of a larger project addressing hundreds of people around the world. The buyer will also be given the opportunity to have their own letter typed, included in the price.