This November, Guy Hepner welcomes a fresh release of Pepi Erdbories’ Love Letter sculptures, following the sold-out success of her first collection in May. Known for merging sculpture with the sentimentality of handwritten letters, Erdbories’ Love Letter series taps into a world of nostalgic communication, bringing love notes and poetry to life in ways that feel both timeless and uniquely personal.
Erdbories began with love letters drawn on real envelopes—a tactile exploration of romance and personal expression. Her shift to three-dimensional sculptures opened up new possibilities, transforming intimate messages into tangible art objects. Each letter is carefully hand-sculpted and inscribed, with Erdbories selecting meaningful quotes that resonate with universal feelings of love, longing, and memory. Rather than mass-producing sentiments, Erdbories treats each letter as its own poetic entity, thoughtfully choosing words that carry a sense of sincerity and emotional weight.
For this latest release, Erdbories expands beyond envelopes to introduce sculptures in the form of pages, broadening the narrative of her work. By adding pages, she invites viewers to see her work not only as isolated notes but as part of a larger story, akin to reading entries from a personal diary or fragments of cherished memories. These page sculptures offer a raw, intimate look into love expressed through poetry and prose, each piece conveying a snippet of the artist’s imagined correspondence.
The process behind each sculpture is deliberate: Erdbories begins with a phrase or quote that reflects the emotions she wants to evoke—sometimes a line from a classic poem, other times a phrase she's crafted herself. She translates these words into sculptural form with careful attention to detail, playing with text placement and even subtle imperfections to mimic the look of handwritten ink on aged paper. This handcrafted quality gives her work an organic feel, as if each piece were discovered in an old keepsake box rather than sculpted in a studio.
On view at 177 10th Avenue, these new pieces present a compelling continuation of Erdbories' journey with Love Letters, one that reimagines the power of handwritten notes in a digital age. Whether a letter or a page, each sculpture is a reminder of how art can hold memory, creating a lasting impression that resonates with audiences on a deeply personal level.
