Hilary Pecis “Come Along With Me”

Rachel Uffner Gallery

[Image: Hilary Pecis "Morning" (2019) acrylic on canvas, 50 x 40 in.]

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Rachel Uffner Gallery presents Come Along With Me, Hilary Pecis’ second solo exhibition with the gallery. Spanning both first-floor galleries, Pecis will debut new interior, still life, and landscape paintings, each illuminated with saturated color and framed by varied perspectives.

In Come Along with Me, the Los Angeles based artist invites viewers to step into intimate settings and environments inspired by the Southern California light. Pecis constructs portraits of friends and family through both the interior and exterior spaces they occupy utilizing objects as signifiers for human characteristics rather than the figures themselves. The imagery in Pecis’ work comes from her archive of snapshots taken from hikes, travels, visits with friends in their homes or restaurants, and depictions of the artist’s surroundings. Rather than direct re-creations, Pecis focuses on specific details that evoke the feeling of a captured moment—taking liberties while emphasizing texture and brushstroke, color and pattern, and manipulating perspective.

Pecis’ interest in the history of representational painting is evident throughout her work. She often includes stacks of monographs, exhibition posters, and works by other artists within her compositions, allowing Pecis the opportunity to try out different styles alongside her vernacular of making. With the inclusion of cultural and art historical references, Pecis offers a set of visual cues to the viewer that speak to specific time and place.
For example, in Morning, 2019—from the perspective of the coffee drinker—a Los Angeles Times newspaper lays atop a kitchen table adorned with a rhythmically patterned table runner, while tchotchke-esque candle holders surround a vase filled with marigolds. These details subtly offer points of entry for the viewer to reflect and form their own associations.

Ultimately, through negotiating the negative and positive space on the canvas, Pecis’s acrylic paintings allow for contemplation of the space we occupy and how we overlap with our surroundings.

Hilary Pecis (b. 1979, Fullerton, CA) earned a BFA and MFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA. Recent solo exhibitions include The Crisp-Ellert Museum, St. Augustine, FL; Halsey McKay, East Hampton, NY; The Pit, Los Angeles, CA; Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA; among others. Pecis has participated in numerous group exhibitions, at venues such as Brand Library & Arts Center, Glendale, CA; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; University of Texas, San Antonio, TX; Dominican University of San Rafael, San Rafael, CA; and Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA; and a forthcoming exhibition curated by Helen Molesworth at Jack Shainman Gallery - The School, Kinderhook, NY; among others. The artist’s work has been reviewed in ArtForum, The New Yorker, and CARLA. Pecis was the 2008 recipient of the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship and is a co-founder of Binder of Women, a collective of female artists based in the Los Angeles area. Pecis lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.