At the beginning of February, artist Sheila Pepe visited MCAD to give a lecture and spend some time with MFA students in their studios.

Pepe spoke at MCAD about “her cross-disciplinary work blending craft and conceptualism.” Pepe, an artist and educator based in New York, is known for her “large-scale, ephemeral installations and sculptures made from domestic and industrial materials through a self-described process of ‘improvisational crochet.’ Since the mid-1990s, she has used lesbian feminist and craft traditions to investigate systems of power in institutions of art and education.”

“Pepe has received a number of awards and has exhibited widely throughout the United States and abroad in solo and group exhibitions at venues including the MoMA PS1, the Leslie Lohman Museum of Lesbian and Gay Art in New York, and the 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale. Her mid-career retrospective, Hot Mess Formalism, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog and will be on view at the Phoenix Art Museum through January 2018, and she will premiere a commissioned installation in the Minnesota Museum of American Art’s new sculpture court when it opens in fall 2018.”

MFA students that welcomed Pepe into their studios to discuss their process and work included 1st year painter Heather Lamanno, 2nd year painter William Jiang, 2nd year interdisciplinary artist Libby Wiswall, and 1st year photographer Cassandra Cook.

Thanks for visiting, Sheila!

Photography by Yi Wan.

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For more information:

Sheila Pepe Lecture
Sheila Pepe
Heather Lamanno
William Jiang
Libby Wiswall
Cassandra Cook