Fernando Casas

It is with profound sadness that we announce the sudden and unexpected death of the artist and philosopher Fernando Casas. Casas died on May 28, 2026, in the home that he shared with his husband, Terry Drake, in Magnolia, Texas. Fernando Casas was born Fernando Rodriguez Casas in Cochabamba, Bolivia. From an early age, Casas displayed prodigious artistic talent winning many accolades and awards even as a teenager. A LASPAU scholarship brought Casas to Colorado College, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Philosophy in 1970. He then received a fellowship to Rice University in Houston, earning his M.A. in 1972 and a Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1978. As the connection between art and philosophy became inextricably linked for Casas, he began a meticulous phenomenological description of the way we see the world that took him from revealing to the observer the intricacies of stereoscopic vision, to showing how our world is fragmented because our perception of it is always presented to us from two different angles and the mind "chooses" what one actually experiences, to questioning why the representation of what was available to us visually should be constrained to a linear perspective. Casas innovated visual perspective techniques to map the world in a way that was more congruent with how we experience it. His works, which spanned oil, pencil, and collage; surrealism, cubism, and realism, curved space and created fluid dynamics that opened metaphysical doors and dissected the intersection between perception, the self, and the world we live in. Some works even allowed the viewer to be co-constituted in them by having mirrors capture an image of the viewer within the work. In the last decade of his life, Casas produced a series of works that speak to the passage of time: round and oval "Polar Time" paintings depict the inexorability of change; a series of intricate drawings invite the viewer to "read" them from side to side, or up and down…as a time progression. In each of Casas's work, there are messages and reminders, sometimes warnings, which harken to humanity's place and responsibility in the world. Over the decades, Casas has helped all those who have taken the time to contemplate his work find the "edge of the world: the border between reality and the whereof we cannot speak but perhaps can show." Fernando Casas has presented more than 30 solo and 35 group exhibitions across four continents. His artwork is also part of many permanent private collections and hangs in galleries around the world. His work on art, science, philosophy, and perspective has been discussed in 11 books. Today, his legacy is being preserved and honored at The Limits and Proximities Foundation for the Arts (https://limitsandproximities.com/). The Limits and Proximities Gallery, open to the public in Washington D.C., represents the single largest collection of Casas's paintings, drawings, and etchings in the world. Casas is survived by his husband Terry Drake, his siblings Becky Soria, Julio Rodriguez, and Gabriela Rodriguez. Though his absence has created a void in the lives of family and friends across the globe, what Casas has left for everyone is an indelible imprint on the world of art, philosophy, and science that will forever aid us in understanding who we are. The Addison family and staff of Magnolia Funeral Home extend condolences to the Casas family and friends during this difficult time. No services are scheduled through the funeral home.