Julie Peppito Chooses Hope
April 11 – May 17, 2025
Statement and curation by Melanie Prapopoulos
The CAMP Gallery
791-793 NE 125th St. North Miami, FL 33161
The solo exhibition, Julie Peppito Chooses Hope, suggests a guide on how to navigate life through mixed mediums of fiber, paint, found objects and her own innate belief in preserving the positive. Peppito tackles the daily distractions of life by creating multi layered works exploring where she is in the present as a means of establishing order in a life that is chaotic. Chaos can be found in any segment of life where reality clashes with self imposed expectations, where time flies uncontrollably out of ones’s grasp, and much more. Peeling back life as we cross the social landscape, Peppito responds to the world she inhabits by offering hope. Coming into her own in an ever changing art world and practice, Peppito spends a great deal of time with not only the work that evolves, often from one object, but also with her thoughts on the piece. Her thoughts can travel through the everyday and mundane, through her own life, and through the climate she encounters. This multifaceted looking around her is clearly seen in works such as; Growth 1 & 2 (2025). The works offer the concept of growth in many ways. For example, it can be seen as two unequal stages of growth, two direction for growth—or a limit to growth because of the different sizes. But in both there lies hope, simply because the works are bordered by a literal blank canvas, thereby giving one the freedom to move out of the work and into a new stage.
Peppito often creates a tableaux both overflowing with action and thought, but also one open and dependent on interpretation. Dividing for example, Holding Pattern (2025) into two sections, one is able to skip through the left portion only to attentively explore the right side. The piece is divided by color, historical references, the artist, and elements of culture. Once you travel through the labyrinths Peppito creates, you may enter into the unformed, the unknown. The work holds an intentionally ambiguous landscape, one with a shadowy figure lurking in the window, an empty chair, and less—but even through this almost ‘void,’ Peppito places her bird, a muse, a symbol of the imagination—fully formed, fully identifiable—showing that come what may, there is always hope and somethings can never be erased. This is the key in Peppito’s philosophy—there is always hope, and we can all work towards the beautiful tomorrow of our imagination.
In all of Peppito’s work one can witness her artistic practice as her search for materials rises from both conscious choices to something that catches her eye. This ‘eye-catching’ object is usually the idea of a work in its moment of becoming, akin to an unconscious stage, but as more than one idea holds space in anyone’s mind— new ideas often come hurdling towards her, calling her to listen to the ideas, and thus one idea evolves into many. These ‘many’ are then masterfully composed by Peppito to tell the story that she wishes to tell, as well as to listen to the stories that come from her works when viewed. Her work stands on the precipice of optimism forever leaning towards hope. The hope lies in the future, what she likes to envision for a ‘beautiful tomorrow,’ and the hope that her work stimulates, awakens and leads into conversations and connections bound in the hope for caring connections amongst all.
