Sheila Pepe is an artist, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and believes art exists only in pursuit of meaning –even while it can be made with almost anything, sometimes nothing at all. 

Born in Morristown, New Jersey in 1959, Pepe received a BA from Albertus Magnus College in New Haven; a BFA in ceramics from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston/Tufts University. Pepe studied blacksmithing at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; residencies include Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University and Civitetella Ranieri, Umbertide, Italy, For over thirty years, Pepe has accumulated a family resemblance of works in sculpture—installation, drawing, and other singular and hybrid forms. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently at The Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York; others include Des Moines Art Center; ICA Boston; Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus. She contributed to Liquid Sky (2007), which was on view at MoMA PS1. Research Station for the People (2014) was included in the 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennial, OCAT, Shenzhen, China. Hot Mess Formalism (2017) was organized by the Phoenix Art Museum.

Pepe’s work is in private and university collections including Hood Museum, Dartmouth, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers; Rose Art Museum at Brandeis; Smith College Museum of Art; and Harvard Art Museums. She is represented by Marinaro Gallery in New York.

My work relies upon the canonical arts of the 20th century, home crafts, lesbian, queer, feminist aesthetics, and an array of Roman Catholic sources and their ancient precedents.

Two kinds of work got me to this Academy. One, “My Neighbours Garden”, (2023), extended a 30-year practice of radicalizing the grandmotherly constitution of crochet into a paradigm of feminist action into public space. The other, table top objects from an open series were begun in 1994. And of course my mission: to investigate the long history of public art, with a look at sculpture of nation-building.

What I’ve seen, done and made speaks to a turn infinitely more internal, a process required to speak more plainly to this long moment of collective crisis.

In this city I have taken a small, yet critical sampling of beasts in service of men. In all, I’ve only found a mandate to shrink in awe, or leave my pack to feed and sustain. As an artist I find no solace in taking permanent space in public, but rather a hysterical humor provided by long histories. Standing under another set of balls, heels, stirrups and tails I recall 2000 years of tears.

And here, swaddled on this very tall hill, I’ve found my ur Roma. I’ve buried burdens and unearthed ancestors– found new ways to re-think Patria. I leave with the power of laughter, love and two words: One Latin– trans, the other, an old favorite– feminism.

Details:

Ink and acrylic on paper

Single channel video

Bronze ( pending delivery)