Upstairs Gallery: Hilary Pecis: On View

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hilary Pecis
On View
April 28 — June 24, 2018

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 28, 6 – 8 pm
Rachel Uffner Gallery is pleased to present On View, an exhibition of new works by Los Angeles based artist Hilary Pecis. Comprised of nine new acrylic paintings, this is the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery.
The works in On View reference the history and medium of painting. Following the traditional motifs of still life and landscape painting, Pecis challenges the genre with her use of energetic and vibrant swaths of color, highly pigmented patterns, and manipulated perspectives.

Using her surroundings as inspiration, each work in this series is based off of a photograph sourced from Pecis’ personal cache of images, which she takes on a regular basis. Spanning the upstairs gallery, we see blooming flowers, street vistas, and a friend’s record collection. Each work uniquely reflects the light, aesthetics, and pace of Los Angeles and offers an intimate glimpse into her daily life. The process of translating these photographs into paintings allows Pecis the opportunity to meditate on the specific moment and memory captured, helping her to create, as she says, “a sincere translation of my own experiences” for herself and for the viewer.

Pecis often changes the original photograph through the process of painting, emphasizing texture and brush stroke. With the inclusion of cultural references, such as the books in Camellias or the album covers in Sean’s Records, Pecis offers a set of visual cues to the viewer. These subtle yet clear indicators offer context and a point of entry into Pecis’ world and create a space for the viewer to reflect on and form their own associations.

Hilary Pecis received both her BFA (2006) and her MFA (2009) from San Francisco’s California College of the Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton; Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco; and Joshua Liner Gallery, New York. Pecis has appeared in several group exhibitions including at V1, Copenhagen, Denmark; Hunted Projects, Tilburg, Netherlands; Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Brooklyn; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA, among others. Her work has been featured on ArtInfo, KQED, SF Gate, as well as in the summer 2017 print issue of Artforum.