Hilary Pecis
Winter in LA
2024
Acrylic on linen
140” x 140” x 2”
David Kordansky Gallery
This representational painting depicts a Los Angeles home’s living room during the winter holiday season. A low beige coffee table lies closest to the viewer’s vantage point, resting atop a primary colored rug. A red book and pot with blooming red flowers sit poised on the table. As the eyes move deeper into the painting, a set of two yellow chairs, a gray couch, and a smaller arm table converse with each other, covered in colorblocked pillows and quilts. A pair of organically shaped orange lamps peer over the couch. A christmas tree, adorned with eccentric ornaments, nestles itself between the seating elements and stretches upwards to the utmost edge of the canvas, where a gold star emerges from the top branches. Behind the tree, a curtainless window and brown wooden door sweep across the painting, depicting an iconic view of a winter Southern California landscape full of contrasting purple mountaintops and a valley of luscious green trees. Small picture frames, a potted green plant, a blue and brown accent bowl, and a set of silver keys are perched atop the window sill. A bookshelf inserts itself directly below the sill, completing the composition.
One can immediately notice Pecis’ use of exaggerated color and perspective. The vivid saturation, flat color planes, and contrasting hues create a fantastical appearance, and allure the viewer into a mesmerized state. Pecis’ warped perspective reveals itself through intentional distortions of space and proportions. While the vantage point suggests a one-point perspective, the viewer experiences multiple perspectives, as the lines of the rug, couch, chairs, and bookshelf all point in varying directions. This blend of hyperbolic perspective and color creates an appearance of elementary and playful stylization.
After the initial excitement of the composition and bold color, the painting reveals intricate details of line, texture, and pattern. Pecis employs an intuitive line making technique, which delicately applies itself onto the surface of nearly every element, and creates striking textures. The wooden surface of the floor, table, chairs, window frame, ceiling, and door represent a grainy texture through lines of varying weight and shape. The fuzzy couch, rug, doormat, and Christmas tree communicate their textures through ambiguous organic shapes. These strategic pattern techniques harmonize the painting and bring it to life. In addition to Pecis’ visual pattern creation, the artist also constructed conceptual patterns for the viewer to discover. The Christmas tree houses dozens of ornaments in varying representations, including a betta fish, a chocolate chip cookie, a squirrel, Godzilla, Saturn, and a soccer ball. One can suggest that these ornaments are of sentimental value, and depict items that are meaningful to the artist. Another conceptual pattern finds itself on and beneath the window sill. A picture frame on top of the window sill illustrates a brown horse at a fair with a second place ribbon pinned to its mane. Another portrays a child with rosy cheeks in a hat. It can be speculated that these depictions are of personal significance to the artist. Below the windowsill lies a bookshelf, with books celebrating different artists, including Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Cezanne. One can suppose that Pecis’ Fauvist style is derivative of these artists.
One can hypothesize that Pecis’ elementary stylization of shape, proportions, color, and pattern recontextualize the viewer’s perspective of an ordinary living room, and evoke a feeling of childhood nostalgia and familial memories. Pecis’ use of sentimental and representational objects imply an affinity for her family’s holiday traditions, a consideration of her upbringing, and an ode to those who inspire her. Pecis’ work may encourage the viewer to find beauty in habitual routines, and to reflect on significant themes from familial upbringing.
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