Adrian Pepe
Adrian Pepe is a Honduran fiber artist based in Lebanon. His artistic practice is an ongoing investigation into process and material. Through his work, he interweaves nature and culture to create objects as tools to enable an open discourse on materiality, our morphing cultural landscape, and the present condition. Pepe’s work is rooted in textiles, spanning site-specific installations to durational performances. By directly engaging with the sentient providers of raw materials— whether plant or animal— Pepe forges relational ties that manifest in objects and events imbued with artistry, sweat, perspiration, mythology, and symbolism; transforming acts of making into speculative, embodied rituals that test and extend our understanding of material agency, ecological intimacy, and the poetics of labor.
Urban Shrouds
2021
Found jute fabric
In his practice, Pepe explores the porous boundaries between humans, animals, and the environments they inhabit. Working primarily with raw wool and the hides of Awassi sheep, he transforms discarded materials into sculptural and textile works that examine processes of renewal, regeneration, and interdependence.
In the series Urban Shrouds, Pepe approaches textiles both as material and as a metaphor for transformation. The work emerged in response to the 2020 Beirut port explosions, after which nearby buildings were draped with large pieces of fabric resembling funerary shrouds. Using found textiles stitched together with silk threads, the artist treats them as an archive of the landscape and history, revealing the connection between the city and the human body.