Artist Biography
Sculptor, illustrator, poet, Pepél is an Italian artist based in Venice, specialised in recycled art and art meditation.
Born Laura Finotto in 1981 in a small provincial town, Pepél found refuge in art during her childhood, as a way to find solace and courage in response to a traumatising and dysfunctional external environment.
In 1999, on her 18th birthday, she enrolled at a meditation class. This practice became a daily routine that she soon included in her art process.
In 2012, she officially became a professional mixed media artist, attracting since the very beginning a wide, heterogenous and international public, particulary attracted by her use of alternative materials and by her capability of including the customert’s precious belongings in her artworks, as well as by the emotional charge of her simple and minimal illustrations.
In 2014 Pepél created her first “Peps’n’Doll” sculptures that, together with the characters of her drawings, made Pepél’s pieces of art recognisable and attributable to the artist herself, allowing her to collect critical success, awards, exhibitions and valuable international collaborations.
In the following years, she gained recognition in the poetry field. This led to the publication of the illustrated book “El Mazzariol” and the inclusion of 10 of her poems in the contemporary Italian poets encyclopedia “I Poeti di Via Margutta”.
The 2019 needed to be a year off. A break form the frenetic art life and a time for reflection and meditation after which Pepèl chosed to adopt a slower and more natural lifestyle. Since then, she lives and work immersed in the silence of a country town in the company of her husband and their four cats.