Andrew Pepper studied Fine Art in the UK, where he began working with projected light and 3-D light installations. During this period he saw his first hologram in Paris, at an exhibition organised by Jody Burns and Posy Jackson, at the American Cultural Centre, in the City. He thought this would be the ideal medium to use to document his installations in 3-D.

On conclusion of his Fine Art course, he spent 2 years at the Museum of Holography, in New York, as a Fulbright Scholar, and it was there that he learned how to make holograms at new York Holographic Labs. It was some time before he felt comfortable using the medium - wanting to find an alternative to the amazing 3-D effect which had originally attracted him to the medium.

When he returned to the UK in 1982 he began lecturing and writing on creative holography and starting to produce his own work, which has now been exhibited in solo and group shows world-wide. He also completed a PhD in Fine Art Holography, the first of its type to be awarded by the Fine Art Department of the University of Reading.

During 1988 Pepper was awarded a Lionel Robbins Memorial Scholarship which allowed him to continue his PhD research and carry out extensive exploration in a specially built holography studio at Reading University.

In 1991 he moved to Cologne to take up a 5 year post with the newly established Academy of Media Arts, which as part of its studio activities was offering Holography under the direction of German Artist, Professor Dieter Jung.

During this time in Germany he was able to realise a project he had been working on for several years earlier and founded the Creative Holography Index, The International Catalogue for Holography, which provided a very high quality collection of material about artists working in the medium, as well as commissioning several leading writers to give their views on the development of the field.

While at the Academy he was introduced to the Internet and world wide web and eventually began to ‘translate’ the paper publication into a digital one, making it accessible to a much wider audience. He has remained interested in this idea of digital publishing and delivered several papers on the subject at international conferences.

1996 saw him move back to the UK to organise and chair Art in Holography2, a major international symposium which attracted speakers and delegates from all over the world and concentrated entirely on the art of the medium.

From 1999 - 2004 he was director of the Shearwater Foundation Holography program, established by Posy Jackson in 1987. Each year it provided 100,000 US Dollars to support and encourage creative holography, as well as honouring several artists with the annual Holography Award, given to outstanding practitioners in recognition of their major contribution to the field.

In 2007 he became director of the International Holography Fund which was established to fill the gap left by the Shearwater Foundation and is now the only fund which is dedicated to supporting creative holography world-wide.

Pepper is a visiting studio lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, sculpture Fellow in Fine Art at the University of Lincoln and contributes to the professional development module in Fine Art at the University of Nottingham.

He has also lectured at the Royal College of Art, London, and the Universities of Sunderland, Lincoln, Reading, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester.

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