Hilary Pecis paints dreamy interiors that invite the viewer inside. These interiors are most often based on photos she captures of either her home or her friends’ homes. “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,” she explained in an interview with Art of Choice.
Though the paintings are very location-specific, they’re somehow universal – a vibrant collage of modern-day living in all its messiness and “multi-culturalness.” As such, her work has been exhibited at galleries like Halsey McKay, East Hampton, NY and Rachel Uffner Gallery, NY; and has also accumulated more than 10k followers on Instagram.
Born in Fullerton, CA, Pecis has been living and working in Los Angeles since receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2006 from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. According to Pecis, the slower pace in Los Angeles allowed her to meditate on her setting.
“The pace also nurtured my investigations into figuring out how to make paint do what I had intended for it to do,” she says. “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.”
“I was so thrilled to make paintings of just about anything because everything resonated a vibrancy that I was unaccustomed to,” she recalled. “Additionally, I was a new mom and my scope seemed to be shrinking to my immediate surroundings.”
Take a peek inside her playful interiors:
