“Deserts have always fascinated photographers" - says John R. Pepper - "They often enter deserts in order to capture the beauty of the landscape. As beautiful as that might be, I wanted to go beyond that. My concept, my goal, was to use the desert as a painter uses a virgin white canvas. I sought to discover what imagery was revealed to my eye - -sometimes it was figurative, sometimes abstract --creating a symbiosis between the landscape in front of me and the images buried within me. At the end of this subliminal research, my photograph, my "canvas", became an expression of my deepest being, of my perceptions as an artist". Three years, 18,000 kilometers traveling in the deserts of Dubai, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Mauritania, Oman, Russia and the United States, allowed Pepper to discover evocative places that express a unique complexity and emotional diversity.

Serge Plantureux
Senigalia, 2021