Julie Peppito’s works are an amalgam of materials and perspectives. She allows errant elements, forms, and raised patterning to accumulate across the surface of her mixed media works, challenging the notion of depth and focal point. Populated by sketched lines and images of childhood and innocence, Peppito’s works represent the shape of memory while also nodding to human impact on the Earth. Peppito holds an MFA with a concentration in sculpture from Alfred University in Alfred, NY (2004) and she received her BFA from The Cooper Union in New York, NY (1992). She has exhibited at such venues as Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Long Island Children’s Museum, Heskin Contemporary, Art in General, PS122, Momenta, and Ethan Cohen Gallery, among others. Peppito received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture (2001). The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Artist Statement

I create creature-like sculptures, layered tapestries, and large installations out of reused materials. The hybrid forms are about oneness, repairing the Earth, and the human condition. 

Like insects stuck in a spider web, I embed litter, broken toys, and other unwanted objects into the surfaces of my mixed media textiles, drawings, paintings, and sculptures. I use stitching, imagery, lines, fungus-like raised patterns, and other repetitive motifs to create transitions between two and three dimensions. Wrapped and layered masses disperse into narratives that are reminiscent of childhood—innocent, deep and reflective at the same time. The hybrid forms are metaphors for the way we connect to ourselves, to each other, and to the planet.