New York artist Beverly Pepper began her career as a painter, but she has become particularly well known for her monumental abstract sculptures. Her massive works, industrial in scale yet intimate still, can be found in dozens of cities throughout the United States and Europe. Using such materials as stone and metal, Pepper creates sculptures that evoke both natural and built environments, specifically the extraordinary building projects of early civilizations. For example, Sudden Presence might remind one of the Egyptian pyramids. Yet its ramp-like, planar forms also bring to mind the elevated highway, I-93, that once bisected this urban landscape. As you walk around the sculpture, its shape changes markedly, and you may find that it evokes other associations. For example, Pepper views her artwork as emotionally
expressive. She once commented, “I wish to make an object that has a powerful presence, but is at the same time inwardly turned, seeming capable of intense self-absorption.”