Simon Casson was born in York, England in 1965 and spent his
childhood in Zambia. After a foundation course in Art and Design at
Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Simon completed a Bachelor of Arts
(Hons) at Exeter College of Art and Design. From there he went on
to study for a Postgraduate Diploma in Printmaking at Central St
Martins College of Art and Design in central London, completing his
art education in 1994 with a Masters Degree in Fine Art Painting
from the prestigious Royal Academy of Art.
In a fusion of highly contrasting styles, Casson's monumental
paintings forge together with shocking audacity two jarringly
opposing intentions in painting. A pantheon of luscious, sensuous
mythical figures, decked in coloured silks and set in heroic
landscapes uneasily share the canvas with an anarchistic
deconstructivist's overlay of stark flashes; an unpeeling of layers
with slivers of vibrant colour, slashed and irreverent
brushmarks
and disembodied parts of other paintings. As such, Casson's
paintings can be read on multiple levels: as we peer through
windows in the canvas to another world beyond we are at the same
time comforted by beauty, yet unsettled by the vandalism that
interrupts it. Casson's works are held in both public and
private collections around the world, including those of H.R.H the
Prince of Wales and the international headquarters of Barclays
Bank, Shell and Fox Searchlight Pictures. In addition, Casson has
become a highly decorated British artist, garnering the Royal
Academy Medal for Painting and showing in solo and group
exhibitions in the US, China, Spain, the Netherlands and the
UK.
Casson now lives and works in Somerset, England with his wife,
three daughters and his Dalmatians.