Rivers & Mountains, 2018
Painted paper collage on Fabriano Artistico
Suite of 10 works; edition of 6
Each 14 × 41 in.
Published by Manneken Press
Rivers & Mountains is a suite of ten painted-paper editions that continue Rupert Deese’s sustained exploration of the forms and colors of California’s Sierra Nevada. Each work is composed of paper painted in carefully considered, intensely saturated colors, precisely cut to shape, and assembled in paired hues on heavy Fabriano Artistico sheets. Subtle textures and brush marks reveal the artist’s hand within the otherwise immaculate surfaces, while the knife-cut edges remain exceptionally crisp, heightening the optical interaction between adjoining colors.
Though fundamentally abstract, these works maintain a close relationship to the landscapes and watersheds of the upper Merced, Tuolumne, and Kern Rivers—alpine regions central to Deese’s life and artistic practice. Rather than depicting these places, the works translate their contours and chromatic impressions into parallel presences: companions to the rivers and mountains that inspired them, and a continued meditation on the configuration of this geography.