hilary pecis artist research

Hilary Pecis

Hilary Pecis (b. 1979, Fullerton, California) makes paintings and drawings in which tableaus rich with interlocking fields of saturated color, geometric patterning, and bold linework provide views of sun-drenched domestic still lifes and landscape environments. Books crowding a coffee table, the remains of a dinner party, and terrains lush with Southern California succulents make frequent appearances in her work; these meticulously arranged interiors and vibrantly rendered exteriors amount to an overarching portrait of the self that identifies objects and locations as signifiers for human characteristics. Pecis combines distorted perspectives and surprising juxtapositions of hue, placing her work in dialogue with modernist art historical movements like Fauvism in which subjective and analytical tendencies are synthesized. At the same time, her interest in images sourced from her personal experience allows her to transform recognizable mise-en-scènes into vivid explorations that celebrate the quiet moments of everyday life.

Hilary Pecis has been the subject of solo exhibitions at TAG Art Museum, Qingdao, China (2023); Rockefeller Center, New York (2021); Timothy Taylor, London (2021); Spurs Gallery, Beijing (2020); Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York (2020); and Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, Flagler College, St. Augustine, Florida (2019). Recent group exhibitions include  The Interior Life: Recent Acquisitions , National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2023); 13 Women: Variation I , Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California (2022–2023);  Present Generations: Creating the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art , Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio (2021); FEEDBACK , The School at Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, New York (2021); L.A.: Views , Maki Gallery, Tokyo (2020); High Voltage , The Nassima-Landau Project, Tel Aviv, Israel (2020); and (Nothing but) Flowers , Karma, New York (2020). Her work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Palm Springs Art Museum, California; and Aïshti Foundation, Beirut. Pecis lives and works in Los Angeles.

Featured works

Yellow Table , 2021

acrylic on linen

74 x 64 x 1 5/8 inches

(188 x 162.6 x 4.1 cm)

Gabrielino , 2021

64 x 74 x 1 5/8 inches

(162.6 x 188 x 4.1 cm)

Collection , 2020

acrylic on canvas

70 x 100 inches

(177.8 x 254 cm)

Marche Vernaiso , 2020

50 x 40 inches

(127 x 101.6 cm)

Party Dog , 2019

50 x 62 inches

(127 x 157.5 cm)

Untitled Interior , 2019

44 x 32 inches

(111.8 x 81.3 cm)

Botanical Gardens , 2019

Untitled , 2018

color pencil on paper

12 x 9 inches

(30.5 x 22.9 cm)

14 x 11 x 1 1/2 inches

(35.6 x 27.9 x 3.8 cm)

Camellias , 2018

24 x 20 inches

(76.2 x 61 cm)

Car Wash , 2018

(61 x 50.8 cm)

New Years Day , 2017

30 x 40 inches

(76.2 x 101.6 cm)

Eastern Sierras , 2017

30 x 24 inches

Exhibitions

Los Angeles

Selected Public Exhibitions

Publications.

Janelle Zara

Dodie Kazanjian

Pearl Fontaine

Nancy Gamboa

Taylor Dafoe

Gwynned Vitello

Emmalea Russo

Johanna Fateman

Prudence Peiffer

By Artspace Editors

Nov. 4, 2022

Hilary Pecis can remember the first time she saw a picture by Henri Matisse. The Californian painter had visited her cousin’s house, and there was a poster reproduction of Matisse’s 1912 work, Goldfish , on the wall. “I remember thinking ‘That is the best painting I've ever seen in my life,’” the artist recalls. “It just shifted the way I looked at things.” Contemporary gallery goers should be thankful for that shift. Today, this young Californian painter is the natural inheritor of those blissful, simple interior life studies.

Pecis is known for her signature style of representational paintings that update the historical genres of domestic interior, landscape, and still life — and are among the most sought-after works by any contemporary artist working internationally today. The human figure is generally absent from Pecis’s scenes, which nonetheless exude humanity and personality, displaying the lovingly curated minutiae of life. When seen through Pecis’ eyes, familiar interiors and landscapes of Los Angeles encourage us to celebrate the quiet power and vibrant beauty of the everyday.

Indeed in the new Phaidon book, Great Women Painters , the artist, born in Fullerton, California, in 1979, is praised by writer Ellen Mara De Wachter for works that “exude humanity and personality, displaying the lovingly curated minutiae of life.” Yet perhaps the highest praise comes from knowledgeable art-world insiders. “She’s kind of like our David Hockney,” said the acclaimed contemporary curator Helen Molesworth. “There’s that free, Laurel-Canyon-pool, everyone-sleeps-with-everyone version of L.A.—the David Hockney version of L.A. Then there’s the domestic L.A., where there’s a bowl of oranges in the corner and you’re looking at a book about Bob Thompson, having your matcha tea—and you are slower than your friends in New York. It’s like the dream of L.A. I think that she embodies that.”

However one frames it, it’s a style of painting that’s gained a strong following within the art market. Pecis has enjoyed sold out shows on both sides of the Atlantic, and in May 2021, her 2016 painting Garden Cats sold for $225,437 at Christie’s in Hong Kong – more than double its high estimate.

Pecis has also recently been the subject of solo exhibitions at Rockefeller Center, New York (2021); Timothy Taylor, London (2021); Spurs Gallery, Beijing (2020) and Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York (2020). Her work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Flagler Museum, Palm Beach, Florida; Aïshti Foundation,
Beirut; Columbus Museum of Art; Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, California; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Yuz Museum, Shanghai.

This week she releases a new edition with Artspace, Untitled Interior, 2019/2022, with proceeds from the sale of the print benefitting Students Run LA (she’s a keen runner, more of which later) and the MCA Chicago’s Women’s Fund . The edition is an archival pigment print on Somerset Velvet paper 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.64 cm). It is an edition of 40 plus 4 APs and 1 PP Hand signed and numbered by the artist on front. The edition is priced at $5,000.

To mark the launch, we spoke to Pecis about the edition, happiness, Los Angeles, and the ways in which running is a bit like painting.

What inspired you to make the original work from which the edition springs? This painting was made from an image that I took of a friend's home, which reminds me of a lot of many LA homes. It was a little messy and had interesting lines and bright colors. It also had quick references to artists that she was looking at vis-a-vis the books on her table.

Are the works candid views of everyday life, confected visions, or a mixture of both? I paint from images that I took with my phone which are probably initiated by the composition or color or patterns, or the subject matter itself. They are usually images of places I have walked or run through, or images from my home or that of friends.

I have mixed images for a painting, but I am not very good at it, so I tend to stick with the imagery in the photo. If anything, I often edit out information, simply because I am overwhelmed with all of the info. I take liberties with color, and I often edit out things that don't make sense.

Running informs your paintings too. How does that form of exercise influence your art in ways that might surprise us? I like to think of painting as an endurance activity. Each painting in itself is a series of small movements that add up to a finished piece. And the continuation of the practice in painting is a journey with ebbs and flows and growth between paintings and shows. I relate this to endurance running, where the efforts of the thousands of miles that are put in before a race are summed up. And, from race to race, there is room for improvement and many more miles. I am betting that I will have run more than 2000 miles by the end of this year.

Many of my paintings are made from images that I have taken while on a run. Fortunately, I am a rather slow runner, and so have plenty of time to look slowly at my surroundings. LA is full of many beautiful colors and flora and signs and trails. It is nearly impossible for me to step foot outside without snapping images on my camera.

There’s an undeniably joyous element to your paintings. Do you paint because it offers you a route to that joy? I will just say that I think I am a generally happy person. I find endless joyous inspiration around me, and my eyes are always looking and trying to remember the sentiment so that when I make a painting it is infused with the way I felt as well. I love painting and sometimes I still can't believe that I am lucky enough to do it full time.

What attracts you to working with acrylic? I love the flatness of acrylic. When I had a home studio I used acrylic out of necessity, but as my practice developed I embraced the qualities of the medium. My paintings have been likened to a paint-by-numbers, which is exactly how I go about making a painting. There are no blended parts that might require the ease of oil, and the flatness of acrylic really speaks to the way that I like to depict space.

Is there such a thing as a typical working day for you? I have a ten-year-old so I keep a pretty regular work schedule so that we can do normal family things. I usually work from nine-to-five and take a 30-minute lunch break around one o’clock. I have a friend who helps me in the studio, and we just chat most of the day. I used to listen to music or podcasts, but now we just talk unless I am tripped up on a painting.

When I start a painting I make a very quick compositional sketch, and then quickly lay down big swaths of color to get rid of the white. And from there I slowly noodle away. I don't know how long it takes me to make a painting because I bounce around between paintings when I get stuck. I would rather be moving and hopefully the solution presents itself while in action. There are not a lot of sedentary moments in the studio. The difficult bits are the best parts and if I didn't have problems and new issues, I would probably get bored. This is where the magic is for me.

You credit the punk scene in your hometown of Redding, with fostering a certain type of creativity. Who were the bands and what were the experiences you particularly cherish? Although I was born in Southern California, I spent most of my childhood in Redding, CA. It is a somewhat sleepy town near the Oregon border, and the I-5 freeway ran through it. Many small punk bands would come through on their way between the bay area and Eugene or Portland. There weren't any traditional venues for these bands, so they tended to book shows at the Lyons Club or the Moose Lodge, or other civic type buildings. It was a very DIY approach and I think that carried over to my early art days. If you can't find the right venue to play or gallery to show your work, you just make one.

HILARY PECIS - Untitled Interior, 2019/2022

You have some wonderful tattoos, did you design any yourself? It is true that I do have quite a few tattoos. I was a very ambitious young adult and I have always loved decoration. I did not design any of them and I haven't been tattooed in nearly two decades.

Finally, your work is included in the new Phaidon book Great Women Painters who, for you, is the greatest woman painter - contemporary and from back in the day? My favorite painter who was included in the book (and otherwise) is absolutely Gabriele Münter always and forever. She was associated with the Der Blau Reiter and made incredibly rich colored paintings. I have included images of her paintings in my own. I also love the compositions of Marianne Von Werefkin. I was thrilled to see her included in this book, because although images of her work are readily available on the internet, I haven't had as much luck finding books with images of her paintings.

As for living artists, it is hard for me to think about who I would consider the greatest contemporary painter today, without thinking about how they relate to me, are friends with me, or how I try to avoid comparisons. I really appreciate the works of Clare Woods, Nicole Eisenman, and Mary Heilmann and so, so many of the artists named in the book. Someone who was not named in the book is Maija Peeples-Bright who was an important artist within the California Funk artists and who is still making work today into her 80s.  She is a wild and brilliant woman who everyone should know about.

To buy Untitled Interior, 2019/2022, framed or unframed, go here.

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Hilary pecis.

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Still lifes and interiors are deeply rooted in the history of representational painting. I get to try out different marks and be a tourist in other people's paintings.

Hilary Pecis  (b. 1979, Fullerton, California) is an American figurative painter who lives and works in Los Angeles. In meticulously detailed works in acrylic on canvas, Pecis captures the urban and natural landscapes of her home city as well as the interiors of Angelenos’ homes. While her native city figures as a primary character in her work, Pecis’s depictions of easy West Coast domesticity are rich with the personal details that fill these environs. She works from photographs and memory to create scenes that document the art, record, and book collections that inhabit the homes of friends. Fields of poppies or leaves floating on water scintillate to kaleidoscopic effect in her landscapes while in her interiors, plant life is placed in conversation with floral patterned textiles. Many of her paintings feature artworks and handicraft nestled within works, including textiles, prints, and original paintings, lending them portal-like qualities. 

Pecis earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from California College of the Arts, San Francisco and was the 2008 recipient of the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship. She is a co-founder of Binder of Women, a Los Angeles-based collective of female artists.

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Museum Acquisition | Hilary Pecis

London Gallery Weekend

15 Bolton Street London W1J 8BG

74 Leonard Street New York, NY 10013

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Artist Hilary Pecis on Traveling Remotely Through Painting

Hilary Pecis specializes in scenes of richly detailed domesticity: the sorts of rooms we all wish we had on our Zoom backgrounds, enlivened by bohemian textiles, flowering plants, and piles of carefully chosen art books. But upon closer examination, her visions of home are nomadic; like many artists the Los Angeles-based Pecis has traveled frequently for work, and so flea markets, storefronts, and Airbnb rentals find their way into her paintings—and give seemingly straightforward environments a bit of intrigue. Her exhibition last summer at Halsey McKay in East Hampton, "Adios Verano," took shape around a road trip to the American Southwest, where she visited Taos and Georgia O'Keeffe's "Ghost Ranch."

In recent weeks, Pecis—like the rest of us—has had to look for inspiration closer to home. Her latest exhibition at Rachel Uffner on New York's Lower East Side, "Come Along With Me," opened in early March just two weeks before regular gallery hours were curtailed by the city's COVID-19 closures. But Pecis is staying positive amid the uncertainty. In an interview with Artful conducted a few weeks into the shutdown, she spoke about being a "tourist" within paintings by other artists, finding silver linings in the shutdown, and where she plans to go as soon as travel picks up again.

Karen Rosenberg: First I just wanted to ask the question I feel like we're all constantly asking each other right now: how are you doing?

Hilary Pecis : I feel pretty lucky that I am still able to work, because there's no one else in my studio. So many of my artist friends aren't able to go to their studios, because they're in shared buildings or the buildings are locked. I have been going there around six in the morning and heading home around noon, because my husband and I have a seven year-old who's having to be home-schooled. My husband is also an artist, so we are splitting up our day evenly so that we each get studio time. I normally would work from about eight to five, so I was able to really focus and get into that flow, whereas right now I'm very distracted. As soon as I start to get going, my brain just shifts gears—I wonder what's going on on Instagram, and the text messages start coming in. I'm trying to pass the time, get quick inspiration, see what my friends are up to.

KR: You're a painter of still lifes and interiors, mostly, and everyone is now trapped in domestic environments. How has that changed the way you approach your subjects?

HP :  Still lifes and interiors are deeply rooted in the history of representational painting. There are all these opportunities to noodle away at other artists' or artisans' mark-making, trying to depict something that isn't mine— fonts, or handicrafts, or textiles. It's an opportunity to further my own vocabulary. I get to try out different marks and be a tourist in other people's paintings.

KR: I love that you used the word "tourist." As you said, your work is full of these diverting references to other artists. Who have you been thinking about lately?

HP : One of my favorite contemporary art movements is California Funk , which is having a good moment right now: Maija Peeples-Bright, Joan Brown, Roy De Forest, Robert Arneson. There's something playful and fun about those painters and the work doesn't seem to take itself too seriously, although there's also a seriousness behind it. I typically like work that's accessible, that can be talked about in an academic vernacular or enjoyed by somebody who doesn't know anything about art. That's something that the Funk artists did very well.

I also tend to revert back to the Fauvists: Matisse, Derain. I think there's some comfort there for me—the comfort of looking at an old friend. The first time I'd seen a Matisse was on a poster of The Goldfish , at my cousin's house, and I remember thinking "That is the best painting I've ever seen in my life." It just shifted the way I looked at things. That's what I think happens in these times—we're slowing down, looking at things we've found comforting in the past.

KR: Your show at Rachel Uffner had been open for about two weeks when the COVID-19 shutdown went into effect. What was that like?

HP : People keep asking me, "Are you devastated?" but I'm so grateful it was open for two weeks. I feel really bad for anyone who was planning a show that never opened or got shifted to an online exhibition. This also wasn't my first New York show, and I think that would have been a lot harder. I would love for it to have been open to the public for two months, like it was supposed to be, but two weeks sounds luxurious right now.

KR: How do you think your work is experienced online? What comes across, or doesn't, in that format?

HP : The biggest difference would be the scale. It's really hard to deduce the scale without having a model standing in front of the work. Even in the images with the work installed where you can see the floor, you really don't grasp how big they are. The one I'm working on now is fairly large, 74 inches by 100 inches. Other than that, though, they do translate pretty well online.

This is a great opportunity for collectors and gallerists to see work that they otherwise wouldn't. It's also an equalizer. There are a handful of really, really famous artists, and there are millions of other people making really good work that are completely unknown. Social media has brought some of those artists to the attention of a gallerist that might not have seen them before.

KR: Another response to the crisis has been collaboration: galleries banding together to create cooperative online platforms. This is something you have been doing for a couple of years now, as a founder of the artist collective Binder of Women . How did that come together and what did you learn from it?

HP: The idea was that by working together we would lift each other up, and maybe get exposure to gallerists or collectors from one another. I had seen Artists Space and White Columns put out these editioned portfolios. You might buy it because you like artist A, but you'd be getting also B, C, D, E, and F, so you might be introduced to a new artist. We were trying to come up with a title for the group, and one of the members threw out the Mitt Romney phrase "Binders full of women." It's just such a hilarious statement, so we ran with it.

The first edition of four artists did really well. The group is now sixteen artists, and we put out a new binder just this last winter. It's done very well too—it served its purpose of exposing the artists to a new audience.

KR: What's the first trip you'll take when you can travel again?

This summer I had two trips planned: to Costa Rica and the Hudson Valley. I hope that I can still do both. I was supposed to have work in a group show up at Jack Shainman's gallery in Kinderhook, curated by Helen Molesworth. I've never spent time north of the city, around Hudson, and I have all these plans to visit friends that have moved up there and really check out the area. That was an exciting summer plan, but it's probably not going to happen right away.  

In a few months—I say a few months, but it could be six months—our lives will start to roll back into place, and we'll figure out how we move forward. If you saw L.A. right now, though, it's so incredibly beautiful. There isn't the tiniest bit of fog, and there's nobody on the roads. There has to be some kind of silver lining to all of it.

Captions (all paintings courtesy the artist and Rachel Uffner Gallery): Portrait of Hilary Pecis in her studio, courtesy the artist; Hilary Pecis, "Lilies," 2020; Hilary Pecis, "Fruit Bowl," 2020; Hilary Pecis, "Visiting Michelle," 2020; Hilary Pecis, "Santa Monica Mountains," 2020.

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Artist Hilary Pecis Opens Captivating Solo Show at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles

For “paths crossed,” on view march 18 through april 22, the l.a painter transformed a selection of her signature snapshots into acrylic urban landscapes.

As a disciplined runner, Los Angeles painter Hilary Pecis covers anywhere from 45 to 55 miles per week, accumulating countless iPhone photos of the city along the way. “The landscape in L.A. is so incredible,” Pecis says during a recent visit to her studio in the Frogtown neighborhood, describing the patchwork of lush front yards, strip mall parking lots, and scenic hillsides on her routes. “From Elysian Park, you look across the freeway and the San Gabriel Mountains are right there.”

Hilary Pecis, Gabrielino, 2021. Photo : Edward Mumford, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery

For “Paths Crossed,” her inaugural solo show at David Kordansky ’s L.A. gallery, on view from March 18 through April 22, Pecis will transform a small sample of her snapshots into acrylic urban landscapes, dialing up the relatively flat hues of these digital images to match the fantastical colors of her memories. The real-life pinks and indigos of a mountain sunset in Santa Monica, for example, “are so much more vibrant than in my photo,” she says. (After briefly considering upgrading her phone for a higher-resolution camera, she realized that she actually prefers her imagination.)

Hilary Pecis, Bueno East Mart, 2021. Photo : Edward Mumford, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery

Hilary Pecis, Leo Carrillo, 2022. Photo : Edward Mumford, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery

The show marks a shift for the artist, who is best known for painting still lifes—domestic tableaux saturated in both the patterns and primary palettes that draw comparisons to David Hockney and Jonas Wood. To compose scenes stripped of right angles or other man-made points of reference “was really exciting to me and also the most challenging,” says Pecis, whose artworks display more organic brushstrokes that focus on “connecting natural movements of the sun to shadow and reflection.” Capturing this vast subject matter resulted in scaled-up canvases, too: 100 inches tall by 140 inches wide—the largest works she’s ever made.

Hilary Pecis, Tulip Table, 2022. Photo : Edward Mumford, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery

Pecis’s show at David Kordansky Gallery, where she worked as a registrar until early 2018, coincides with another milestone—running her 2,000th mile. “I’m so excited, it’s ridiculous,” she says. “It’s a slow journey—you take a little bit at a time, where you enjoy looking around. I want to invite people to come and see where I’ve been.”  

Hilary Pecis, Patio, 2022. Photo : Edward Mumford, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2023 Spring Issue under the headline “Self Reflection.” Subscribe to the magazine .

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Hilary Pecis’s Rose-Tinted Los Angeles Is Not All Fantasy

The LA-based painter views her city's power lines, signage, and natural landscape through idealistic but familiar glasses—as seen in "Paths Crossed," which debuts at David Kordansky Los Angeles this week.

• Jonathan Griffin
• March 13, 2023
• X (Twitter)

“I don’t make pictures of things I don’t like,” says painter Hilary Pecis , standing in the gallery of her hotly anticipated debut exhibition at David Kordansky in Los Angeles.  Pecis has enjoyed enthusiastic market attention for her earnestly winsome paintings of happily cluttered domestic interiors, tabletop still lifes, and street scenes of LA, where she lives. The world Pecis describes is simple, harmonious, free from fear, and untroubled by social ills. It is a place that many of us, especially over the past few years, would be glad to escape to.

“I’m definitely looking at LA with rose-tinted glasses,” she admits, regarding her painting North Hollywood Strip Mall , 2022. “Although, if I was beautifying or idealizing it, I would probably edit out all the gum on the sidewalk in this painting.” The zig-zagging composition also includes power lines, street signage, homemade merchant posters and business insignia, all rendered in Pecis’s charmingly wonky hand.

In her exhibition “Paths Crossed,” she turns her democratic, equalizing gaze on such diverse subjects as an auto body shop, the Grand Canyon, a spray of pear blossoms, the view from a hill in Echo Park, a friend’s garden, and, in her largest painting to date, a glorious, golden-hour mountain vista from a trail above Malibu. 

“During the pandemic,” Pecis says, “it was often noted that I was a still life painter. I wanted to remind people that I also paint landscapes! I spend so much of my time outside. I run 50-plus miles a week. I love being outside.”

Pecis often paints from photographs she shoots on her phone while out running. Most of the places in “Paths Crossed” are well-known to her: No Parking, Private, 2022, shows foliage across the street from her home; Lily’s Backyard , 2023, depicts the garden of her studio-mate, the painter Lily Stockman ; and that pear tree shades the spot where she eats her lunch. Even 2022’s Southern Rim —the chasmic void of the widely-depicted Grand Canyon—commemorates a place that has family significance for her.

The show is nearly stolen by a piece in the viewing room behind the main gallery: a double-sided freestanding screen, adorned with two opposing views of the bridge over Echo Park Lake. Pecis says that she’s attempted to make sculptures in the past, but they always ended up feeling like objects with pictures stuck on them. With this screen—titled Palm Horizon , 2023—the domestic object and the urban landscape are perfectly integrated. 

Pecis says that compared to still life scenes, landscapes are much more challenging—not to mention laborious. Interiors, she muses, are mostly hard edges and solid colors; outdoors, there are myriad surfaces and textures that she has to translate meticulously into paint.

Do these landscapes indicate a new direction in her work, I ask? Maybe not: “I cannot wait to make a still life painting!” she laughs.

" Paths Crossed " will be on view from March 18 through April 22, 2023 at David Kordansky in Los Angeles at 5130 W. Edgewood Pl.

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Hilary Pecis

By Andrea K. Scott

Remember joy? Hilary Pecis is here to remind you in “Warmly,” her beautiful exhibition at the Rachel Uffner gallery (on view through May 7). The subjects of the Los Angeles painter’s eleven new acrylic-on-linen works, all made in 2021-22, are the visual rhythms of everyday life and their happenstance patterns and poetry. Pecis paints big—at six feet high, her pieces are taller than she is—but in tone she’s an intimist, carrying on the tradition of Édouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis, and not simply because her eye is on the decorative pleasures of home. For all its seductive, lifelike immediacy, a Pecis painting always insists that it is, most essentially, to use Denis’s words, “a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order.” That idea is wittily reinforced in the show’s newest piece, so fresh that it’s still untitled, depicting a framed collection of paint-by-numbers flea-market finds hanging, salon-style, on a green wall. Pecis generously renders the works of anonymous hobbyists as lovingly as she does those of the German Expressionist Gabriele Münter, which appear on the pages of an open book portrayed (above) in her “Studio Table.” (Uffner; March 13-May 6.)

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With Her Market Ascending, Hilary Pecis Joins Los Angeles’s David Kordansky Gallery

By Angelica Villa

Angelica Villa

Hilary Pecis , whose vibrant still life paintings have attracted a loyal market following, will now be represented by David Kordansky gallery in Los Angeles. The gallery will showcase her work at Art Basel this week. A solo show with the gallery will take place in 2023.

The Los Angeles–based artist’s work is sought after by collectors. Her still lifes feature vibrant fabrics and richly colored flowers; palm trees can sometimes be seen in the distance. Because they flatten domestic spaces, these paintings have drawn comparisons to David Hockney. Pecis has cited German Expressionists like Gabriele Münter and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, as well as the Fauvist Édouard Vuillard, Funk artist Roy de Forest, and figurative painter Joan Brown, as being among her influences.

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The art market is something Pecis knows a good deal about, given that she worked as a registrar at David Kordansky for five years before becoming an full-time artist. In March 2019, she left to focus on her studio practice. “I was trying to figure out any way to keep one foot in the gallery,” Pecis said.

Mike Homer, a partner at David Kordansky, said Pecis’s journey from gallery staffer to star artist is relatively unusual. “It’s never happened in the 11 years I’ve been here,” he noted, adding that her work as “became much stronger” after leaving the gallery world. “The growth was noticeable in a relatively short amount of time.” Pecis also has one more unusual connection to the gallery: her studio is in the same building as Ruby Neri, who is also represented by David Kordansky.

This past May, Pecis was featured in the gallery’s group show “The Beatitudes of Malibu,” which also included work by Jennifer Guidi and Agnes Martin, both of whom are more widely known than Pecis. But it was Pecis’s work that outpaced expectations. Her painting Gabrielino (2021) sold in advance of the exhibition’s opening, and Homer said that the number of inquiries the gallery received for the work shocked staff. The painting eventually went to a collection in Europe.

Despite the notice her work received from that exhibition, Pecis thought David Kordansky wouldn’t end up taking her on. “It just didn’t seem possible,” she said with a note of surprise.

In the past two years, Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York and Timothy Taylor in London—both of whom also represent Pecis—have staged sold-out solo shows for the artist. On the secondary market, prices for Pecis’s work are skyrocketing. In May, a 2016 painting depicting two cats in a garden sold at Christie’s Hong Kong for $225,400 (HKD 1.75 million), more than double its high estimate of $64,300 HKD (500,000). Then, in July, her landscape painting Backyard View  (2018), depicting a sunset and palm trees, sold at a Sotheby’s contemporary art day sale for £340,000 ($470,200), 17 times the low estimate of £20,000 ($27,600).

Collectors in China are a driving force for her market. Following a solo exhibition at Bejing’s Spurs gallery in 2020, collectors with private museums in the region have added her works to their collections. Her paintings now reside at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, the Zhuzhong Museum in Beijing, and the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing, among others.

Suddenly, Pecis, who was once behind the scenes at the gallery, is now in the spotlight at her former employer. “We have this saying that we work for the artists we represent,” Homer said. “She used to work for us. Now, we work for her.”

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Hilary Pecis

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Hilary Pecis Studio Still Life , 2023 Acrylic on linen 64 x 74 inches (162.6 x 188 cm)

Tulips, Ranunculus, and Oranges , 2021 Acrylic on canvas 74 x 64 inches (188 x 162.6 cm)

Hilary Pecis Spanish Stairs , 2021 Acrylic on canvas 74 x 100 inches (188 x 254 cm)

Art In Focus , 2021, Art Production Fund, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY

Sleeping Dog , 2020 Acrylic on canvas 68 x 54 inches (172.7 x 137.2 cm)

Adios Verano , 2019, Halsey Mckay Gallery, East Hampton, NY

Harper’s Game , 2019, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm)

New Fish Bowl , 2019, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm)

North Rim , 2019, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 20 inches (61 x 50.8 cm)

Winter Table , 2018, Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches; (76.2 x 61 cm)

Dinner Table and Window , 2018 Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches (76.2 x 61 cm)

Unsafe Footing , 2018, Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches; (101.6 x 76.2 cm)

Desert Paintings , 2017, Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY

Red Anemones , 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches; (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

In Accordance, 2012, Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY

In Accordance , 2012, Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY

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Hilary Pecis Conveys The Essence of an Environment

Hilary Pecis’ paintings capture the spaces she inhabits in an intricate and captivating way. Referencing the history and medium of painting, Pecis’ work feels as though it could exist in a number of time periods, while retaining a modern quality. Upon exploring the various details on Pecis’ canvases, one becomes enthralled in all that exists on the surface and could spend hours discovering new and exciting elements. A native Californian, Pecis lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

When did you start creating works in the style you have become known for?

In January 2014 I moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco, and that is when my work took a shift. There were quite a few contributing factors, but mainly the light here was so unlike the light in the Bay Area. I was so thrilled to make paintings of just about anything, because everything resonated a vibrancy that I was unaccustomed to. Additionally, I was a new mom and my scope seemed to be shrinking to my immediate surroundings. The pace in Los Angeles felt slower, which allowed me to spend more time looking and meditating on my setting. The pace also nurtured my investigations into figuring out how to make paint do what I had intended for it to do. The combination of limitless inspiration, the forced slowing down, and the nurturing setting liberated me from any previous ideas about art making and it encouraged growth.

What are the spaces you depict? Are they places you have personally been or ones you’ve dreamt up?

I generally work from images that I have taken. Sometimes I see a setting or landscape that I like right away and snap a pic, and store in a cache to later work from. Generally, they are images from my home or my friend’s homes, although occasionally I have worked from other people’s images as well. By using images as a guideline, it frees me up to take liberties, like using abstraction in particular areas when it makes sense to do so.

Pattern plays a large role in your work – why do you include this element of design?

Pattern is definitely something that I am drawn to in both artworks and in my day to day. I spend a lot of time looking the historic works of the decorative the painters Bonnard and Vuillard, which depict pattern as it exists on the thing being depicted. But I also like to look at painters like Derain, who applied paint in a sort of pattern to quickly render a landscape. Outside of the Modernist painters, I am often drawn to pattern in tile work, textiles, and other handicrafts, which has all make appearances into my paintings. Within a painting pattern can often aid in depicting depth and perspective, often presenting a challenge for me to work out. It also allows me to indulge the use of more color and line.

How do you decide what objects will appear in your scenes?

In my still life works, I just arrange the things that are already laying around into a composition that works for me. There isn’t a lot of selection that is happening, it more of an arranging. Honestly, I like the option to paint anything I want, and try to not set limitations.

You often depict a specific brand, product, or even reference to another artist in your work. Why do you incorporate these elements?

As with pattern, words and symbols are familiar and provide a place for a viewer to enter. I could paint the labeling out or avoid all together, but I think that it is more interesting with the addition of symbols in my paintings. Additionally, I enjoy the way that alphabets require the use of line that breaks up the space. I have said previously that my painting style is that of an unconfident painter. I continue to crudely paint layer over layer to get things right. In doing so, often times these lines get obliterated or they are dwindled down to something that is far less recognizable.

As far as references to other artist: the addition of paintings, posters, sculpture and monographs, are all representational of the artists that I feel that I have some sort of connection with or that I am inspired by. I spend a lot of time looking at art related things in my home, work life, and elsewhere, so it is very natural for these things to make their way into my paintings. It also gives me to opportunity to paint other peoples’ paintings inside my own, which is wildly satisfying.

What artists most inspire your practice?

Maija Peeples Bright, Gabriele Münter, Horace Pippin, Jane Freilicher, Fairfield Porter, Mamma Andersson, Matthew Wong , David Hockney, Ruby Neri, Andre Derain, and Joan Brown. Of course the list is limitless; these are a few that have recently been on my mind.

Is there one artist movement in particular that most inspires you?

I love looking at artist monographs and museum catalogs to view artworks from the across the centuries. The late 19th and early 20th centuries had so many exciting artists working in such a short period. The Fauves use of color and the abstraction of space in a representational painting still thrills me to the max. Additionally, as a native Californian I have always had a deep love for for the Funk and Pop art movements. California Funk is getting a lot of attention the days, which is so well timed. The Fauves and Funk artists are on the opposite ends of abstraction, one leading into, and the other a reaction after, but both have a vibrancy that speaks to me.

What are you most excited for this year?

After working at a wonderful gallery as a registrar for the last five years, I have decided to take a leap of faith and leave the security of a day job to pursue full time studio. The first solo show following my departure from the day job will be opening on April 28th at The Pit gallery here in LA. Later this summer I will be opening my third solo show with Halsey McKay in East Hampton.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?

Claire Colette Maysha Mohamedi Andrew Schoultz Sara Greenberger Rafferty

Artist Hilary Pecis revisits the Lady Dior, adorning it with enchanting embroidered flowers

Description

Welcome to the Dior Talks podcast series dedicated to the eighth edition of Dior Lady Art, hosted by Paris-based journalist Katya Foreman. For this highly-anticipated edition, 12 artists from around the world were invited to transform the iconic Lady Dior handbag into a unique piece of art. 

Bringing the joyous vibrancy of her work to the Lady Dior universe, LA-based artist Hilary Pecis is known for her color-drenched contemporary still-lifes capturing domestic settings, filled with cats, vases of flowers, stacks of books and other signs of everyday life, with references to art history. Her streetscapes and landscapes are imbued with the special light and visual codes of California.

The artist approached the Lady Dior handbag as a three-dimensional canvas surface. Using the virtuoso savoir-faire of the Dior ateliers, she reinterpreted one of her paintings, “Botanical Garden,” depicting a lily pond and reflections from a domed glass ceiling.

An ode to the beauty of the plant world so dear to Christian Dior, Pecis’s Lady Dior is festooned with white lotuses and lily pads embroidered with a textured profusion of beads, sequins and rhinestones in all shades of green, as if they were growing off the bag, while the handle has a delightful organic “wobbliness” to it.

The velvet-lined creation with its 3D volumes and ornate preciousness also holds personal symbolism, with tributes to her grandmother’s collection of costume jewelry and accessories which she liked to dress up in as a child. “She also had an incredible handbag collection and I wanted to reimagine a Dior bag that would appeal to my six-year-old self and me today, as well as my grandma if she were still alive,” says Pecis. 

Tune in to the episode to learn more about the artist’s colorful universe and the inspirations behind her Lady Dior bags. 

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Home  ⟩  Artists  ⟩  Hilary Pecis

Hilary pecis, born 1979, fullerton, ca. lives and works in los angeles..

Hilary Pecis has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Rockefeller Center, New York (2021); Timothy Taylor, London (2021); Spurs Gallery, Beijing (2020); Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York (2020); and Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, Flagler College, St. Augustine, Florida (2019). Recent group exhibitions include The Interior Life: Recent Acquisitions, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2023); 13 Women: Variation I, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California (2022–2023); Present Generations: Creating the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio (2021); FEEDBACK, The School at Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, New York (2021); L.A.: Views, Maki Gallery, Tokyo (2020); High Voltage, The Nassima-Landau Project, Tel Aviv, Israel (2020); and (Nothing but) Flowers, Karma, New York (2020). Her work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; and Yuz Museum, Shanghai.

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  art basel hong kong,   recent editions,   art basel miami beach, erik parker, adam pendleton.

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