Pejac

“I prefer to speak with a soft voice,” Pejac stated in one of his rare interviews, metaphorically describing his poetic approach to creating subtle, yet impactful studio pieces and urban interventions. “When people speak with a soft voice, others draw closer to listen.” This simple, yet undeniable truth is thoroughly explaining the irresistible appeal and the effect of the Madrid-based artist’s oeuvre while revealing his ability to summarize any subject to a preciously whimsical metaphor.

On one hand, Pejac is very particular when it comes to choosing the right place, right context, and right medium or tools, for a certain message. This is why he chose alleys of Istanbul for trompe l’oeil windows interventions; bustling streets of Bushwick, New York for a fossil trompe l’oeil; London’s light poles for gravity-defying shoes; Tokyo for a miraculous appearance of shark fin on the sidewalk; Amman for the poignant materialization of people’s memories on the weathered walls of the Jabad Al-Weibdeh refugee camp; or Moscow for My Only Flag, depicting a child raising a flag made of branches.

Respecting his roots, both figuratively and literally, he made a sobering statement about the importance of nature by painting a melting map of Earth draining into the sewer in his native city of Santander, initiating his leap into the international sphere along the way. A similar thing happened with the illusory tribute to healthcare workers, the universally momentous artwork Social Distancing at the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, which he explained by saying, "Some people donated masks, others have given gowns and also offered tests. What I do best is paint." Alongside many other locations through Spain and around Europe, both on land and on the water, these places witnessed first-hand the seductive appeal and strong impact of the artist’s cleverly conceptualized and discreetly realized ideas.

Simultaneously, in his studio practice, Pejac is using his fine art education to experiment with a variety of techniques, continuously searching for the one that does the best job conveying the desired atmosphere of his vision and concepts. Working with everything from oils and watercolor, over charcoal and pencil, to scarping, burning, stencilling, and spraypainting, but no stranger to sculpture or installation, the artist sees his practice “more like a marathon than a sprint, while valuing the importance of the route”. In such effort, he is often reaching for the most rudimentary tools and materials to create a magic trick of sorts, an illusion through which his work becomes merely a seed which, once planted in the viewer’s mind, will hopefully sprout into a beautiful realization.

- Sasha Bogojev