Patterns of Ancient Life by Pública Rework: Where the Pattern Stops

Patterns of Ancient Life is an art print of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull filled entirely with William Morris's Larkspur pattern. There is no bone in it. There is no outline either. The skull exists only in the place where the foliage stops, and the effect is quieter than a dinosaur has any right to be.

Patterns of Ancient Life by Pública Rework is a fine art print combining William Morris's Larkspur pattern from 1874 with Alan Pedersen's T-rex drawing from 2012. The skull is rendered as dense leaf and flower pattern rather than as bone. It is printed on Fine Art Freja paper at 265 g, in two sizes and two colourways, exclusively for NOKUKO.

A skull with no outline

The skull has no drawn contour anywhere. Look along the top of the snout and there is no line marking where bone ends and paper begins. The edge is simply the place where the Larkspur foliage runs out. Every ridge, every tooth, every curve of the jaw is decided by pattern reaching a boundary and stopping.

This inverts what decoration normally does. Pattern usually sits on a surface, filling a shape that something else has already defined. Here it does the defining. The leaves are the anatomy, and the teeth are the clearest case: each one is a small triangle of the same foliage, tapering to a point made of leaf tips.

The holes are the only bare places on the whole animal. The eye socket, the large opening in front of it and the small oval of the nostril are left as clean paper. In a real skull those openings are structural, lightening the head and anchoring muscle. Here they read as gaps in the wallpaper. The one part of the drawing that is genuinely empty is the part that was empty in life too.

The only Morris print here that reaches forwards

Every other Pública print built on William Morris sets him beside another nineteenth-century source. Orange Morris D'Orbigny lays this same Larkspur pattern next to an 1861 beetle study, and a later print sets Morris beside the French ornamentalist Maurice Pillard Verneuil. In each case two historical images sit side by side on the sheet, and colour holds them together.

This one reaches the other way. The second source is Alan Pedersen's T-rex, drawn in 2012, so the pairing runs forwards out of Morris's century instead of across it. It is also the only one where the two sources do not sit side by side at all. Morris is not placed next to the skull. He is what the skull is made of.

Bottom right, a small circular mark carries both names at once: Morris Pedersen. Two hands, one hundred and thirty eight years apart, credited as though they were a single studio. Underneath the skull sits a plain grey caption reading Tyrannosaurus Rex, and below it, smaller, Carnivore and Cretaceous period. A patterned border runs the full edge of the sheet, the same Larkspur foliage narrowed into a frieze, framing the skull the way a wallpaper border frames a room.

Choosing between the two colourways

The Light Edition comes in White and Blue or Grey and Green, and they are one drawing in two palettes. No shape moves between them. White and Blue puts a deep navy on a bright white ground and reads cooler and more graphic, closer to a printed plate. Grey and Green puts forest green on a warmer grey and reads softer, closer to the wallpaper it borrows from.

The larger 50x70 cm size matters more here than on most prints. At that scale the foliage inside the skull separates into individual leaves and small flowers. At 30x40 cm it holds together as texture, and the skull reads first as a shape.

William Morris lived from 1834 to 1896. Tyrannosaurus rex was not named until 1905, nine years after his death. His Larkspur pattern is here carrying an animal he could not have pictured, drawn by a hand born long after his own stopped.

About Patterns of Ancient Life

What paper is Patterns of Ancient Life printed on?
It is printed on Fine Art Freja paper, 265 g, chosen for colour reproduction and for the way it holds fine pattern detail. The frame shown in the product images is for illustration and is not included.

What sizes does this print come in?
Two sizes, 30x40 cm and 50x70 cm. The larger size gives the Larkspur foliage inside the skull room to read as individual leaves rather than as texture.

What is the difference between the White and Blue and the Grey and Green colourways?
They are the same drawing in two palettes. White and Blue sets a deep navy pattern on a bright white ground. Grey and Green sets a forest green pattern on a warmer grey ground. Every shape holds its position, so the choice is one of temperature rather than of picture.

Is Patterns of Ancient Life exclusive to NOKUKO?
Yes. Pública Rework prints are made for NOKUKO and are not sold elsewhere. This is the Light Edition, and Patterns of Ancient Life also exists as separate Colour and Dark editions.

Written by NOKUKO.