STATEMENT
My work is a composite of candy wrapper glitz and nature’s strange beauty. In this conflicted space, I create sewn, painted and sculpted narratives that show connections between people and the planet we share.
I salvage the excess of societal waste, transfiguring almost everything I find — mangled wire, rubber toys, jewelry scraps, and much more — into intricate constructions. Electrical cords strangle broken figurines, whose bewildered eyes peer out through paint blobs and detailed patterns. Nick knacks and twig appendages sprout within beaded mounds. I adorn trash with elaborate stitches, and obsessively wrap, smash, and suture bits together. Salvaged substrates dictate the shape my works take; some are sculptural, others are flatter wall hangings with topographical elements. My meticulous processes protest the undervalued labor that produces fast goods. I am overwhelmed with a deep-seated feeling that everything's at once valuable and valueless. My work reveals the complexities of being human; I fuse childhood memories, climate change anxiety, familial care, a longing for social and natural mending, and an activist push to somehow reconcile all of this.
BIO PDF
Julie Peppito (b.1970, Tulsa, OK) transforms the waste of our culture into objects of strangeness and beauty. She has been creating sculptures, tapestries, and installations that are about connection, repairing the Earth, and the human condition for over 30 years.
Peppito received an MFA from Alfred University in Alfred, NY (2004) and she received her BFA from The Cooper Union in New York, NY (1992). Her work has been the subject of 10 solo exhibitions. She has shown at many non-profit and commercial venues including: Kentler International Drawing Space (Brooklyn, NY), The Brooklyn Botanic Gardens (Brooklyn, NY), The Long Island Children’s Museum (Long Island, NY), Heskin Contemporary (New York, NY), PS122 (New York, NY), and The CAMP Gallery (Westport, CT/Miami, FL) among others. Peppito received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture (2001). Her playground art is at Washington Park, James Forten Playground, and other Brooklyn, NY parks. Her work has been on the cover of The New York Times Metro Section and covered by Will Heinrich from the New York Times. She's been featured on CBS Sunday Morning with Martha Teichner, on NY1, and other news outlets. She’s currently exhibiting two large scale tapestries at The Sugarhill Children’s Museum. In 2025, she will have her 11th solo exhibit at The Contemporary Art Modern Project in Miami, FL. Peppito creates and teaches art in Brooklyn, NY.
