Shop Available Works by Pia De Girolamo

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Artist Statement

My recent acrylic paintings highlight aspects of the urban landscape of Philadelphia and its suburbs where I live. When I find a particularly compelling composition in either suburban or urban scenes, one that has some element that I find interesting-how a pine looks silhouetted against a bright sky or how the lines, bridges and ramps crisscross and create movement, I take photos. Back in the studio I interpret the scene in acrylic paint. Sometimes, I make several paintings of the same scene, asking what happens if I change up the palette or focus on a different part of the scene. As a former art history major with a concentration in architecture, I appreciate the contrasts between the historic buildings and the modern. Along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, there is a lively interplay of form and line between the old and new buildings and the bridges and roadways. In the suburbs, hard edged structures like sheds, watertowers and houses coexist and stand in contrast with pockets of nature.

My prior series of acrylic paintings on canvas and panel include large wall-sized to smaller and medium-sized works based on family and friends. The paintings are abstracted versions of the models. In my earlier landscape-based work, the human form rarely made an appearance. After two years of confinement due to the COVID pandemic, reconnecting with family and friends rekindled the strong impulse to paint the people I cherish. In addition, I found myself drawn to figures in action including myself which convey joy, energy and intensity, which is the opposite of what I experienced during the pandemic lockdown.

During the pandemic lockdown itself, I painted a series of representational acrylic paintings on canvas based on a friend's posted images of flowers on her Instagram site. She focused on their formal qualities like the varied shapes of seed pods, leaf patterns, or the sculptural look of a single flower, which were qualities that interested me as well in my painting. I asked her if I could paint from these photos. In my series, botanical forms convey emotions, such as loss in a painting with brown, shriveling lotus leaves, a meditative state as seen in a work with floating lotuses on a transparent pink and golden background, and exuberance in the spiky repeating patterns of hot-colored leaves with the yellow eyes of a leopard peering through them.

Prior to the pandemic, I painted natural and urban landscapes based on travel to places as varied as Patagonia, Iceland and Italy relying on a combination of memory and sketches and photos made in the field to render the essence of place, rather than a realistic depiction. These paintings echo the American modernist tradition as embodied by artists such as Milton Avery, Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keefe.

Selected work is available through:

Cerulean Arts Gallery
1355 Ridge Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19123
267-514-8647

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Artist Bio

I am a painter whose primary medium is acrylic on canvas. I live in the Greater Philadelphia area. I produced work for 16 solo exhibitions, most recently at Cerulean Gallery in Philadelphia December 2024-January 2025. I exhibit extensively in juried group shows regionally, including most recently in The Delaware Contemporary Art Museum's summer show, Radius in Wilmington, Delaware. My painting Invasion was reproduced and installed in the group exhibition Arti X Climate at the Smithsonian
Museum of Natural History Hall of Oceans.

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In 2022, the Philadelphia Arts Advocacy organization InLiquid asked me to be the first Artist in Residence at Park Towne Place. At PTP I researched the history of this mid-century modern apartment complex and created site specific works on paper in a variety of media including, charcoal, oil stick, and linocut block print.  

In 2017, Ross Lance Mitchell, Director of the Barnes-de Mazia Education and Outreach Programs at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA selected my work for inclusion in an exhibition at Main Line Art Center in Haverford, PA.

Awards include Best in Show at the Wayne Art Center Regional Juried Spring Open Exhibition 2019 (Juror: Stuart Shils, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), 2nd place in Alfa Art Gallery 's New Brunswick Art Salon 2015-2016 Juried Exhibition Series, Honorable Mention (Juror: Richard Rosenfeld, Rosenfeld Gallery) in the 2011 Montgomery County Guild of Professional Artists Spring Juried Show, Honorable Mention in 2010 in the Main Line Art Center's 72nd Anniversary Members' Exhibition, Haverford, PA, and in 2008, a Juror's Choice Award in Montgomery County Guild of Professional Artists, "World of the Professional Artist" Exhibition.

In 2022 and 2023 Tidings of Magpies Magazine featured my paintings and essays on art. The Marathon Literary Review, the biannual literary magazine of Arcadia University's MFA in Creative Writing published images of my paintings in February 2017. In 2007 and 2009 Victoria Donohoe reviewed my work in the Philadelphia Inquirer. My paintings are in a museum collection in the Musei Di San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome, Italy and in corporate collections including those of PNC Bank Tower Headquarters, Pittsburgh, PNC Bank Corporate Office, Berwyn, PA, PNC Wealth Management, Bluebell PA, and Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.

I received a BA in Art History with a concentration in Architecture from Barnard College, Columbia University and an MD degree from the University of Rochester. I lecture on the intersection between Art and Medicine and the interrelationship of Art, Nature and Health.

Video Links

Bodies in Motion and Sometimes at Rest: Artist Talk with Michael Kowbuz at Cerulean Gallery

Pandemic Flowers: A Bicoastal Conversation a two-person exhibition featuring the botanical paintings of Pia De Girolamo and the photographs of Laurel Termini

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Exhibitions
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Solo

2025
At Home and Abroad, Penswood Art Gallery, Holland, PA
Upcoming September 2025

2024 - 2025
Pia De Girolamo: Urbs/Suburbs, Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2023
Bodies in Motion and Sometimes at Rest, Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2022
Artist Impressions: Park Towne Place, InLiquid at Park Towne Place, Philadelphia, PA
Work created as Artist in Residence    

Garden, Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2021-22
Northern Latitudes, Da Vinci Art Alliance at Atria Senior Living, Philadelphia, PA

2021
‍78º 16º: The Arctic Series, Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2019
‍Being There: The Rome Series, Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2018
‍Mountain Series, Museo Mastroianni in the Musei Di San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome, Italy

‍Mountain Series, Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2017
‍Mountain Series, 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Recent Work,  Art in the Storefront Gallery, Ambler, PA

Recent Work, Bryn Mawr Dermatology, Bryn Mawr, PA

Mountain Series Selection, InLiquid at TheCourtyard by Marriott, Philadelphia, PA

2014
Abstractions, David Rocco Gallery/Pyramid Club, BNY Mellon Center, Philadelphia, PA

2013
Abstractions, David Rocco Gallery/ Capital One Café, Philadelphia, PA

2012 ‍

Pia De Girolamo: New Work, David Rocco Gallery, Philadelphia PA

2011
A Sense of Time and Place, Olitsky Gallery, Temple Beth Or, Maple Glen, PA

2007
On My Way, Pagus Gallery, Norristown, PA

2004
Outside and Inside, Horsham Public Library Inaugural, Horsham, PA

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Two and Three Person

2023
Pandemic Flowers: A Bicoastal Conversation, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
Juried Proposal

2018
Montgomery County Studio Tours Juried Show, Cellini Gallery, Ambler, PA

2016
The Body Eclectic, Scatter Joy Center for the Arts, Horsham, PA

2014
Two Person Show, The Residences, Two Liberty Place, Philadelphia, PA

2010
June Exhibition, Geode Gallery, Cleveland, OH

2009
Green Fest Philly Spring Event Always by Design Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2009
Spring Exhibition, Lankenau Institute for Medical Research, Wynnewood, PA

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Selected Group

2025        
Uncommon Nature, The Art Trust, West Chester, PA

Art x Climate, Hall of Oceans, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.
Presented by the Fifth National Climate Assessment

2024
Radius, Delaware Contemporary Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
A collection of seven unique and concurrent exhibitions organized by 5 teams of curators

‍At the Edge of Light and Darkness (2024 Members Exhibition), CFEVA, Philadelphia, PAGuest Curator, Angela McQuillan

2023
SUBMERGED: A Changing Global Climate, Fairmount Waterworks, Interpretive Center, Philadelphia PA          

2022
Select2022, Garvey/Simon Art Advisory, online at Artsy.net and in New York, NY
Curated by Elizabeth Garvey          

2020
The Inquisitives: At the Intersection of Art and Science, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA

2020
Climate Change: What Will You Do to Help? Juried Exhibition, Oxford Arts Alliance, Oxford, PA ‍

Banished for the Good of the Realm, InLiquid.org online juried exhibition

Isolation, Artspan.com, online juried exhibition
Awarded Runner-up

2019
Wayne Art Center Regional Juried Spring Show, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
Juror: Stuart Shils, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Faculty, Awarded Best in Show

2018
3rd Street Gallery Members Exhibition, D'Arrigo Gallery Salus University, Elkins Park, PA

2017
Water Ways: A Greater Philadelphia Regional Artist Installation, Freeman's Auction, Wayne, PA

Professional Artist Members Juried Exhibition, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA
Juror: Ross Lance Mitchell, Director, Barnes-De Mazia Education and Outreach Programs, Barnes Foundation

RED, Benefit exhibition for The Philadelphia American Heart Association, 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2016
New and Now 2016, Artspan Contemporary Art, Online

Home and Away, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA

All Together NOW! 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Annual Dominic Di Stefano Memorial Works on Paper Juried Show, Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA

2015
New Brunswick Art Salon Oil and Mixed Media Exhibition, Invitational/Juried Show, Alfa Art Gallery, New Brunswick, NJ

3rd Street Gallery Group Exhibition, 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Absolutely Abstract Juried Show, Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA

Spring Gala Exhibition Juried Show,  Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA

2014
Assemblage: A Convergence of Art 3rd Street Gallery - Philadelphia, PA

Autumn Light, Artspan Contemporary Art, Online

Snowflake Salon Winter Invitational, Heavy Bubble HQ, Philadelphia, PA

Art Encounters Invitational, Delaware Community College Art Gallery, Media, PA

2013
Professional Members Exhibition, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA

2012
Professional Members Exhibition, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA

2011
Small Works, Pagus Gallery, Norristown, PA

Memory, Pagus Gallery, Norristown, PA

Alchemy and Intent, City of Philadelphia Board of Ethics,Philadelphia, PA

MCGOPA Spring Juried Show, SPP Gallery, Conshohocken, PA

2010
InLiquid Art and Design Benefit v.11, Ice Box Project Space, Crane Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Green Monos: Abstract Monotype Prints, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Main Line Art Center 72nd Anniversary Members Exhibition, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA

2009
InLiquid 10th Anniversary Show, Gallery 543 Urban Outfitters HQ, Philadelphia, PA

Four Artists, New Work, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2008
Fall Collection, F.U.E.L. Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

The World of the Professional Artist, MCGOPA/SPP Gallery, Conshohocken, PA

2004
Continuing Education Program Annual Juried Show, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

2004
64th Annual Juried Exhibition, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA