Julie Peppito (b.1970, Tulsa, OK) has been creating mixed media sculptures, public art, and fiber installations about connection, the human condition, and repairing the Earth 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: The Sugarhill Children’s Museum (New York, NY), 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.
She received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture (2001). Her playground art is at JJ Byrne Playground, James Forten Playground, and other Brooklyn, NY parks. Peppito’s work has been featured in The New York Times, on CBS Sunday Morning with Martha Teichner, on NY1, and other news outlets.
Recent exhibits include “Saturated” curated by Heskin Projects in Brooklyn, NY and “Homeward Bound” curated by Garvey / Simon in New York, NY. In 2025, she will have her 11th solo exhibit at The Contemporary Art Modern Project in Miami, FL. Her studio is in Brooklyn, NY where she is also the owner of Peppito Art Workshop, an art program specializing in portfolio development.
"By combining candy wrapper glitz, nature’s strange beauty and urban decay, I create sculpted, sewn, and painted narratives that show connections between people and the planet we share. My meticulous processes challenge the undervalued labor that produces cheap goods. I am overwhelmed with a deep-seated feeling that everything's at once valuable and valueless. I salvage the excess of societal waste, transfiguring discarded materials — mangled wire, broken toys, old furniture, and much more — into visionary constructions. I adorn the debris with mosaics and stitches, obsessively wrapping, smashing, and suturing bits together. Knick-knacks and twig appendages sprout from encrusted mounds. Electrical cords strangle broken figurines, whose bewildered eyes peer out through colorful blobs and detailed patterns. Scavenged objects become substrates that dictate the shape of my work, some are sculptural, while others are two dimensional with topographical elements. 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."
Tell us a little about yourself (where you are from) and your background in the arts.
As a child I made tiny boats out of sardine cans, toothpicks and paper. I sailed them in tributaries of water I poured in the spaces between the roots of the giant pecan trees behind our house.
I grew up in a suburban middle class neighborhood in the 70’s and 80’s. My parents were New Yorkers who moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma the year I was born. As a teen I thrifted clothing, housewares and old toys to re-fashion into sculptures and wearable art; I started to question why people throw things away and why everything we buy seems to lose value. I began seeing parallels between products and fashions that had lost value and how certain people were considered less valuable in our society. I dreamt of living in New York, the place my parents had left so they could find The American Dream. I got into The Cooper Union of Science and Art, it was free then, and I moved to Manhattan in 1988 to attend. Conceptual art was in fashion while I was there, and my use of craft materials and process oriented methods were mocked. I was grateful to the conceptual artist Hans Haacke for defending me in a critique when a student said it looked like my piece should be in a craft fair, clearly meant as an insult. Haacke’s institutional critiques of capitalism helped me realize that the objects I collected were discarded artifacts of our capitalist culture, and by reusing them in my work I was also commenting on the destructive aspects of capitalism.
After I graduated I spent many years showing in non-profits and group shows around NYC. I moved upstate for a couple of years to attend Alfred University and received my MFA in 2004. I had my first two solo shows that year. Between 2005 - 2015 I made public art for two Brooklyn parks and began showing at Heskin Contemporary, a gallery in Manhattan. Since then I have been in multiple group exhibits and 10 solo exhibitions, including installing a large scale outdoor sculpture at The Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.
In 2022 I began showing with The Contemporary Art Modern Project (CAMP) gallery in Miami, FL. My 12th solo exhibit opens there on April 4th, 2025. I live and work in Brooklyn, NY with my partner and son.
What kind of work are you currently making?
Wall installations, tapestries, sculptures, and jewelry made of bound, sewn and screwed together reclaimed plastic toys, textiles and other debris.
What is a day like in the studio for you?
I turn on Democracy Now! and use the first hour while it's on the radio to clean and organize, then I get distracted and go get a snack, then I set a timer and begin again. I am usually overwhelmed by so many ideas that I have to go through this ritual several times to get myself to focus. Sometimes I will have to refocus all day over and over again.
Sometimes I get super involved in a project and can’t stop. In those instances I have to remind myself to get up and stretch and drink water. Almost always I create a giant mess from dumping out all of my bins of reused fabrics and objects looking for just the right things to weave together. Often I am distracted by my phone or my son or other work. It is a battle to stay focused.
What are you looking at right now and/or reading?
I'm looking a trees a lot right now, particularly the ones with huge bulging nodules on them. I'm reading "The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy" by Anand Giridharadas. I am listening to it while I work and I absolutely can't stop.
Where can we find more of your work? (ex. website/insta/gallery/upcoming shows)
Instagram & Threads: https://www.instagram.com/juliepeppito/
Email: www.juliepeppito@gmail.com
Comments