about
Toni Pepe creates prints and three-dimensional assemblages from discarded press photographs, family snapshots, and obsolete photographic equipment. Her work considers photography as both image and physical object. Text, stains, crop marks, and evidence of handling become as important as the picture itself, revealing how photographs are made, circulated, and used. Through these materials, Pepe examines how photography shapes our understanding of time, space, and self, and how a print continues to gather meaning through time and physical contact.
Pepe is Chair of Photography and Associate Professor of Art at Boston University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Blue Sky Gallery, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Her work is held in permanent collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Boston Athenaeum, Fidelity, the Boston Public Library, the Danforth Art Museum, and the University of Oregon, as well as private collections. Pepe was a resident at Frans Masereel Centrum in 2023 and the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Fellow at MacDowell in 2024. In 2025, she received a Howard Foundation Fellowship.
