Toni Pepe’s creative practice is grounded in photographic processes, memory, storytelling, and identity, as seen through a feminist lens. She is developing a series of assemblages made of found and cast photographic materials, ephemera, lenses, and prisms. This project is an exercise on meaning and perception, where she is investigating the limitations and possibilities of observation and photographic vision through materials that mimic photography in their ability to preserve and alter time. In her work, Pepe contemplates how photography shapes our experiences of time, space, and sense of self. How does photography ground identity or splinter it?
Pepe is chair and assistant professor of photography at Boston University and has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Center for Photography at Woodstock and Spilt Milk Gallery in Scotland. Her work is in the permanent collections at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Danforth Art Museum, Candela Books & Gallery, the Magenta Foundation, as well as many private collections. She is currently included in the exhibit, "Tender Loving Care" on view from July 2023-July 2025, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A solo exhibition of Pepe's work is currently on view at the Boston Athenæum through May 6, 2024. Future solo exhibits include Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR, opening in April 2024, and the Rochester Institute of Technology, scheduled for the summer of 2024 through 2025.
At MacDowell, Pepe developed new work exploring time, caretaking, and the body and involved site-specific installation, photography, and assemblage.
