Spilling over with neo-geo patterning beneath splashes of hot pink, rocky mountains of bling and soaring scraps of edibles, the collages of Hilary Pecis almost beg you to savor them, reach out and caress them - or put them in your mouth. Sensory overload, rampant consumerism, and the nightmare or illusion of plastic plentitude seems to be the sensation the San Francisco artist is striving for with “Intricacies of Phantom Content,” her first solo show at Triple Base.
Glittery Christmas balls, Sparkle Magic milky ways, ribbons of blond hair, and geometric vortexes populate her panels. Country-clutter quilting provides the bedrock for a series of landscape-like collages – perhaps a telltale sign of her original inspiration. But Pecis also explodes the roughness and sketchiness of DIY: playful pastiche is her vernacular. Her vision: spectacular, crystal-studded and bejeweled apocalyptic dreamscapes, part humanoid, part geological, all magpie distraction.
Pecis’ concepts are so well developed that it’s hard to believe she graduated only last month with an MFA from the California College of Arts. Look for Pecis, who won a Murphy Cadogan Fellowship last year, and Elyse Mallouck, whose **Trickle-down: Yours for the Mining** multi-channel video installation is in the Triple Basement, to curate a performance series at the gallery in July.
“Intricacies of Phantom Content: New Work by Hilary Pecis” through July 26 at Triple Base, 3041 24th St., S.F. Closing Reception is July 26. Hours are Thurs.-Sun., noon-5 p.m. (415) 643-3943. www.basebasebase.com.
