Anna Pepe

Anna Pepe

Anna Pepe's large-scale canvases explore the female form, capturing both the structural and the sensual.

Pepe uses two contrasting visual languages, from mythological, atmospheric compositions reminiscent of faded frescoes to highly reduced archetypal figures, defined by bold contours and minimal colour. Pepe works extensively with textured surfaces, aged fabrics, and large-scale canvases, while also investigating the depth and intensity of colour.

Anna Pepe’s art is shaped by the idea of a dual origin – whether understood as biology or metaphor. Her work unfolds through two distinct visual languages. In one, she creates soft, atmospheric compositions with blurred, almost dissolving female figures. In the other, she reduces the body to simplified, archetypal forms, flattened, minimal, and defined by sharp contrasts. These parallel approaches can be seen as an internal dialogue between what is often described as the “female gaze” and the “male gaze”, two modes of perceiving the female body. Rather than choosing between them, Pepe inhabits both, allowing tension and duality to remain unresolved.