Q&A With Hilary Pecis

Image: Hilary Pecis

Bay Area artist, Hilary Pecis is an artist to start watching now--she's rapidly become a stand out amongst a vanguard of young artists working and exhibiting in San Francisco.  Critics, galleries, and viewers alike have taken notice of Pecis' work as she has racked up a hefty number of scholarships and fellowships including the SF Weekly's Mastermind Grant and the San Francisco Arts Commission's Murphy and Cadogan Fellowhip. In addition to her recognition as a "Mastermind" by the SF Weekly, her work's been featured not once but twice by the prestigious review, New American Paintings, as well as Juxtapoz Magazine.  Her intricately detailed work necessitates closer examination.  Once viewers get past the initial admiration of the striking, patterned surfaces and colors, one notices that her other worldly landscapes are formed by  clips from print advertisements--imbuing her work with a sense of post-apocalyptic dystopia.
At the moment, Pecis is busy juggling a number of upcoming group exhibitions (@ White Walls in January, @ Synchronicity Space, LA in April) as well as an upcoming solo exhibition (@ Triple Base Gallery in July 2009)--all while attending grad school at CCA where she is an MFA candidate.  She kindly agreed to respond to some questions I had:

1) When did you know you wanted to become an artist?

When I was a child, about 5 or 6 years old, there was a show on PBS called "the secret city" with Commander Mark.  My brother, sister and I would all gather around and learn to draw cities and spaceships with perspective and motion. I remember telling my parents that I wanted to be an artist, but they (all civil servants) thought a good government position or union job would hold more security. Ironically the three of us have all been drawn toward creative careers.

2) You have a very distinct style.  When and how did you develop the vision in your current work?  In what direction (in terms of evolving ideas, concepts, use of materials) do you see your work going?

The work has been evolving from the original ink landscape drawings into the newer pieces composed of collaged images from magazines along side drawn elements. I began drawing the landscapes from pictures my brother James had taken in Puerto Rico.  I am a habitual doodler and while sketching from the photos I began to think of the history and information left within the strata of the rocks. Patterns began to emerge, suggesting information and history.  From there I began to include elements from magazines which I found indicative of both trade and alternative realities. As far as where this work will go, I am not sure how to answer that.  Right now I am in the thick of it, and have much enthusiasm for what is happening. Because so much of my work is inspired by advertisements and the economy that determines those ads, we will have to hang tight and see what happens.

3)  The colors, patterns and painstaking detail are mind blowing. Please explain your process in creating your art.

When I begin a painting I sketch out the basics of the landscape and then work on the different structures independently.  This allows me to focus on the minute details of line or color in an intimate way.  After the partitioned spaces are collaged together, I can look at the piece as a whole, tying it together with the last elements.  The patterns have been with me for some time now.  When I began using them, they were appropriated from a variety of sources, however, over time they have morphed into a vocabulary disconnected from the original.

4) The current group show (of which you are a part of)  at 111 Minna, Freak of Nature, assembles work that expands upon the theme of modified and mutated nature/organics.  How do you apply this concept to your current body of work?

This work represents an alternative landscape constructed from advertisements and codes. My drawings depict the aftermath of a population crash, the remains of which are a fusion of cyberspace and hyper reality. The abandoned post-apocalyptic landscape in the position of regrowth is hemorrhaging consumer goods from the code-embedded rock-like skeletal system.  Images and shards from glossy magazine pages are reassembled to remove the familiar pseudo-event, which took place within advertisements and reposition them into a surrogate image within the drawing. Codes in both the strata of the landmasses as well as calculated signifiers from the magazine pages narrate the means to the future history. The space that remains is evidence of the suggested lifestyle/refuge left behind with the disappearance of the human population.

5) What inspires you?

I often think of technological advancements and their rate of growth. The increased amount of time spent in cyberspace since its mass marketed introduction I find fascinating.  Also, the construction of identities through television, advertising and other media forms which suggested a lifestyle that seems limitless, however, proves to be unfulfilling and superficial. I am interested in appropriating and misappropriating cultural images from advertisements, which have no depth, substance or historical connections into the landscape. The current situation within the markets is forcing ad agencies to consider new approaches within their campaigns, such as sustainability over luxury. I think that in the next year we will be witness to a significant shift in media and advertised lifestyles.  And finally, I love looking at landscape paintings from periods such as the Renaissance and Romantic periods. In addition to being incredibly beautiful and rich paintings, they posses the ideals present during that time.  I hope to create not only an aesthetically pleasing paintings, but also one supported by contemporary concerns.

6) Favorite artists, genres, etc?

My boyfriend Andrew Schoultz is a painter as well, and the two of us spend a lot of our time looking and talking about art. I find myself drawn toward artists who have the ability to transform the way in which I view something. Jim Hodges, Jessica Stockholder, Jim Drain are some of my favorites. Collage artist such as Bjorn Copeland, and David Thorpe, who although work very differently, I find inspiring. I love Kristin Baker's paintings as well as historic pieces by Pieter Bruegel. Tom Sachs' makes pieces that question my ability to make contemporary art. It is all over the map really. I still value craft and investments in the making of art, so that would be the only common thread.

7) What is coming up next for you?

In the first week of December I will have work at the NADA fair in Miami, in January I will have a few pieces at White Walls Gallery in SF, and in July I will have a solo exhibition at Triple Base Gallery in SF.

Thanks again to Hilary Pecis!

Check out her work at the Freak of Nature group exhibition at 111 Minna