Intricacies of Phantom Content
New Work by Hilary Pecis
May 15 - July 26, 2009
CLOSED SATURDAY, JULY 4th

Closing Reception: Sunday, July 26; 3-6pm
Special performances by Raphael Noz & Trap Doors (Michael Guidetti)

Triple Base Gallery is pleased to present Intricacies of Phantom Content, an exhibition of new work by San Francisco-based artist Hilary Pecis. This will be Pecis’s first solo show at the gallery. The “Triple Basement” will feature a coinciding video installation by Elyse Mallouk. In conjunction with their exhibitions, Pecis and Mallouk will curate a performance series throughout the month of July.

Pecis’s mixed media works are varied iterations of an imagined post-apocalyptic landscape, where consumer goods are hemorrhaging from a rock-like skeletal system. Evolution is depicted in the detailed layers of rock, along with gelatinous collaged pieces used to describe tumors growing exponentially. Pecis assembles images and shards from glossy magazine pages and repositions them in a continually expanding and mutating environment. Shine and sparkle are everywhere, attracting the attention of, while distracting the viewer from the disarray of the landscape. Pecis’s multi-layered work is underpinned by her interest in a postmodern identity that is increasingly driven by superficial consumer frenzy and media culture.

Pecis had a solo show at Receiver Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2008) and was a recipient of the Murphy Cadogan Fellowship (2008). Selected group exhibitions include Scion Space, Los Angeles, CA; Luggage Store, San Francisco, CA; Mahan Gallery, Columbus, OH; SF Arts Commission, San Francisco, CA; Space 1026, Philadelphia, PA; Okay Mountain, Austin, TX; Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles, CA; Hinterconti, Hamburg, Germany; Marfa Salon, Marfa, TX; and Samson Projects, Boston, MA. She will receive her MFA from California College of the Arts in June.

View images of the exhibition

In the Triple Basement:

Trickle-down: Yours for the Mining
Multi-channel video installation by Elyse Mallouk

Triple Base’s underground project space will feature a multi-channel video installation by Elyse Mallouk. Diamonds drip from the rafters and the cracks in the walls, filling the gallery basement and accumulating in a stack of editioned prints, free to take. Gemstones are powerful symbols of love, desire, and seduction. Like art objects, they are culled from raw material, polished, and invested with symbolic significance and sentiment. They outlive their original owners and their first meanings, transformed each time they change hands. In this projection, the diamonds seeping from the gallery walls allude to the connections between desire, value, and art. Mallouk is currently pursuing a dual MFA/MA in Fine Arts and Visual and Critical Studies at California College of the Arts.