Extract from the main article page 54 The Spectator 2012

Andrew Lambirth

At Long & Ryle, Somerset dialect and folk culture infuse Simon Casson’s more usual classical imagery. Casson (born 1965) is a master of the baroque fantasy, uniting the fruit or flower still like and allegorical portraiture of Old Master paintings with the squeegee surface gestures of Gerhard Richter
 This imagery remains his staple, with landscape, drapery, rabbit masks and roses all playing prominent roles here, but his interpretation has developed new depths. The paint-handling has become less mechanical and more painterly, the squeegee giving way to the hand gesture, with a variety of brush and finger marks, dribbles and gestural freedom. The overlaid marks interrupt and contradict the fragmentary found images, but somehow the unity of the painting holds. Impressive.