Hilary Pecis' vibrant and richly detailed still life and landscape paintings seek to represent identity and the ways in which people create their environment through everyday objects.
Read MoreBorn in Fullerton, California in 1979, Pecis received her BFA and MFA from California College of Arts, San Francisco, graduating in 2009. Pecis worked as a registrar at the Los Angeles-based David Kordansky Gallery before becoming a full time artist in March 2019.
In 2017, Pecis co-founded Binder of Women, an independent platform for contemporary female artists based in Los Angeles.
Today, Pecis lives and works in Los Angeles.
Peci's interior still lifes seek to convey how identity, or aspired identity, can be signified through the objects and details by which we surround ourselves.
Her richly detailed canvases are littered with objects from houseplants and art books to records and dishes set within vibrantly painted interiors, as seen in Camellias (2018), Collection (2020) and Untitled Interior (2020). Walls feature Salon-style hung paintings and posters alongside bookshelves filled with the painting monographs of Georgia O'Keefe, Francis Bacon and Kerry James Marshall, among other modern and contemporary artists.
Pecis' takes her imagery from archival snapshots, which she then sketches directly onto the canvas with a precise use of geometric patterning and linework.
The resulting flattened domestic environments align her work with the interiors of David Hockney and Matisse, while her bold colour and playful approach draw comparisons to the Fauvist movement and Californian Funk artists.
Pecis' exterior scenes capture the surrounding Southern California landscapes, featuring mountainous topography, indigenous foliage and sun drenched settings, as seen in Car Wash (2018), Botanical Gardens (2019) and Gabrielino (2021).
In September 2021, David Kordansky Gallery, where Pecis had worked for five years, announced its representation of the artist with her debut solo exhibition at the gallery scheduled for 2022.
The 2021 edition of Art Production Fund's 'Art in Focus' series featured Hilary Pecis' paintings and mixed media installations in multiple locations throughout the Rockefeller Center.
Hilary Pecis' work is held in public museum collections predominantly in China, including Zhuzhong Museum, Beijing; Budi Tek Yuz Museum, Shanghai; and Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, among others.
Pecis' work has been met with growing demand on both the primary and secondary market, with recent sell-out solo shows at London's Timothy Taylor Gallery (2021) and Rachel Uffner Gallery (2020) in New York. At auction, her prices are skyrocketing past their auction estimates, with collectors in China a notable driving force in her market.
At Sotheby's Contemporary Day Sale in 2021, her 2016 landscape painting Backyard View (2018) surpassed its £20,000 low estimate, selling for £340,000.
Hilary Pecis' solo exhibitions include Hilary Pecis: Piecemeal Rhythm, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (2021); Art in Focus, Rockefeller Center, New York (2021); Delivered by the Foehn Winds, Spurs Gallery, Beijing (2020); Come Along With Me, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York (2020); From a Place in the Light, The Pit, Los Angeles (2019); Familiar View, Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco (2018); and On View, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York (2018), among others.
Hilary Pecis' group exhibitions include Present Generations: Creating the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus Art Museum (2021); 10 Years, Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton (2021); The Beatitudes of Malibu, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2021); Dear John, Adams and Ollman, Portland (2021); L.A.: Views, Maki Gallery, Tokyo (2020); Nothing (But Flowers), Karma, New York (2020); Dwelling Is The Light, Timothy Taylor, London (2020); How They Ran, Over the Influence, Los Angeles (2018); and Sun Gazers, The Pit, Glendale (2018), among others.
Hilary Pecis' website can be found here, and her Instagram can be found here.
Annabel Downes | Ocula | 2021
