Rupert Deese produced a series of twenty woodcut prints at Manneken Press between 2005 and 2012. The collective title of this opus is “Array”. Each of the “Array” prints consists of a circle divided into a tiling pattern and printed in a single color. Each pattern is based on a nine-part division of the circle which is then subdivided with additional radial lines and inscribed circles, creating a field of tiles of equal area. Delineating these territories are lines meticulously cut into the wood by hand. There are places where the spokes don’t meet quite perfectly, where one line ever so slightly overshoots its junction with another. These moments call attention to the physicality of the prints, their material history and presence in the world.

A California native, Rupert Deese has based much of his work on the study of the watersheds of the state’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, especially those of the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers. The tiling patterns derive from designs Deese developed to portray the topography of the region. The prints’ compositions lie somewhere between geological studies and Minimalist abstractions, and though they are suggestive of radar screens or maps, bear no direct relationship to the landscape. Instead they are more like excavations from the artist’s own experiences in nature, and exude a sense of quietude and calm. As in nature, the patterns unfold in mysterious and intriguing ways, with a logic all their own. Associations can be drawn, such as in “Array 1000/Dark Blue”, a striking mosaic composed of more than 1000 tiles, to the rings of a redwood tree. The colors throughout the series derive from observed data - the pale blue of the sky, rich green of meadow grass, or deep ultramarine of lupine in bloom. Samples of dirt the artist brought with him from the mountains were matched to achieve the ink color for “Array 500/Tan”.

Array consists of twenty woodcut prints in four different diameter sizes, ranging from Array 350, with a diameter of 350mm, to Array 1000, with a diameter of one meter. As the prints ascend in diameter, the image size doubles in area. The printing elements are plywood blocks cut by the artist. The editions were printed at and published by Manneken Press.