NYAB Event - Rupert Deese “Array 1000”

Rupert Deese “Array 1000”

Nancy Hoffman Gallery

This event has ended.

The next exhibition in the Project Space at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, will be Rupert Deese’s
“Array 1000,” a new suite of monumental woodcuts published by Manneken Press. Comprised of five 45x45 inch prints, it is the latest and largest addition to the ongoing Array project, 25 circular woodcut prints, which commenced in 2005 and will culminate with the publication of “Array 1400” in 2013.

While essentially abstract, the images have a tangential relationship to the landscape and watersheds of the upper Merced and Tuolumne Rivers in California, an area beloved by the artist, which has inspired much of his artistic output. In 2002 Deese developed a curvilinear equal-area tiling pattern to model this topography for a group of twelve tondo-shaped painted structures called “Merced and Tuolumne Rivers.” The Array prints are a continuing meditation on the configuration of this geography.

Deese divides the space of the circle into nine equal radial divisions. He then sub-divides these wedge shapes into equal areas, using additional radial lines and inscribed circles. Each tile in a particular Array print is equal in area to the other tiles in that print. The number of tiles in a particular print range from as few as 18 to as many as 1152.

The colors of the prints are drawn from the Merced/Tuolumne landscape and sky. Different colors indicate different scales: the purer reds, greens, yellows and pinks correspond to the alpine floral colors, the grayed and tinted colors refer to larger elements such as groups of boulders and trees, while the blue shades and tints correspond to the bodies of mountain water, the atmos-pheric perspective of the horizons and the variable sky blues.

The printing elements are plywood blocks cut by the artist with a router. The inks are hand mixed from Robert Doak pure pigments and plate oil. The editions were printed by Jonathan Higgins at Manneken Press.

Rupert Deese was born in Upland, California in 1952. He received his M.F.A. and B.A. degrees from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas.

The artist’s work has been shown at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Connecticut; American Academy of Sciences, New York; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; Art in Embassies Program, United States Department of State (South Korea); The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas; Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, California; Heckscher Museum of Art, Humboldt State University, Arcata, California; The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York; Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana; Naples Museum of Art, Florida; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; New York State Museum, Albany; University Art Museum, State University of New York, Binghamton. His work is included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno.