Julie Peppito’s artwork is a combination of psychedelic collage, miniature quilts, botanical illustration and Americana that blurs the traditional boundaries between high and low art. Like insects stuck in a spider web, sentimental and natural objects, litter and other ephemera are embedded into the surfaces of her drawings and sculptures with obsessive stitching, fungus-like raised patterns, finely painted lines and other repetitive motifs that flow between two and three dimensions. These tapestry-like masses disperse into fantastical and realistically rendered narratives 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.
Julie Peppito received a BFA in 1992 from The Cooper Union in New York City, and an MFA from Alfred University in Alfred, NY in 2004. In 2001 she received a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship for sculpture. Her work has been the subject of five one woman shows, and she has shown her work extensively, primarily in New York City. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband (artist, illustrator, graphic novelist, and musician) Gideon Kendall and son Milo. You can see her playground art at J.J. Byrne Playground and Underhill Playground both in Brooklyn.