ARTIST: PIA DE GIROLAMO
Art Histories are highly curated presentations of an artists’ life’s work provided for appreciators today, scholars of tomorrow, and generations to come.
Pia De Girolamo is an accomplished modernist landscape painter who lives in the Greater Philadelphia area. De Girolamo has had 17 solo exhibitions, most recently at Cerulean Gallery in Philadelphia in January 2021, and notably, at the Museo Mastroianni of the Musei di San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome in October 2018. She has exhibited extensively in juried group exhibitions regionally and her work has been selected for film set design, most recently by Creed ll Productions.
Awards include Best in Show at the Wayne Art Center Regional Juried Spring Exhibition 2019, Wayne, PA (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, and in 2008, a Juror's Choice Award in Montgomery County Guild of Professional Artists, "World of the Professional Artist" Exhibition.
Pia De Girolamo has a BA in Art History from Barnard College, Columbia University and an MD degree from the University of Rochester. She lectures on the nexus between Art and Medicine and the interrelationship of Art, Nature and Health.
De Girolamo's paintings are in corporate collections including those of PNC Bank Tower Headquarters, Pittsburgh, PNC Bank Corporate Office, Berwyn, PA, PNC Wealth Management, Bluebell PA, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA as well as in the collection of the Museo Mastroianni, Rome, Italy.
“In the studio, I explore what makes these mountainous places beautiful and mysterious and create paintings in which massive forms, the surrounding emptiness, and the sense of gravity dictate how I use color and shape.”
COLLECTION: MOUNTAIN SERIES
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Artist Statement
I love being in the mountains and places with dramatic geological formations. The key word in that sentence is "being". All the senses are engaged as I pocket smooth stones, sketch a mountain, smell the thyme and clover, taste the tartness of wild plants and listen alternatively to the sounds of nature as well as its silence. When I go hiking in the mountains, exhilaration arises both from the physical effort as well as from acknowledging fear and overcoming it. The body hums with the energy of exertion and alertness.
In the studio, I explore what makes these mountainous places beautiful and mysterious and create paintings in which massive forms, the surrounding emptiness, and the sense of gravity dictate how I use color and shape. As I work, the paintings evolve, and while some refer to real places, others spring from composite memories of shapes or vistas. All are a record of what is for me of the essence in these landscapes, whether they are in Iceland, the Canadian Rockies, the American Southwest or Patagonia.
© Pia De Girolamo, Blue Towers, Acrylic on canvas 40” x 60”
CATALOG ESSAY
Written by Amie Potsic, CEO & Principal Curator, Amie Potsic Art Advisory, LLC
“Her shapes, colors, and compositions mirror the tectonic shifts and geologic marvels of the stunning landscapes she has explored. Using a bold visual language, she recalls the intensity and elation of her adventures.” - Amie Potsic
Artwork Featured: © Pia De Girolamo, Green River, Midnight Blue Mountain, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 48”
CATALOG
The Mountain Series
Solo Exhibition 2018
Collection: BEING THERE: The ROME SERIES
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Artist Statement
My modernist landscape paintings, whether presenting a natural or an urban landscape, project the essence of place which arises from interacting forms and color combinations.
In the case of the Roman and Italian urban landscape, these forms encompass a variety of geometric shapes, including apartment blocks, triangular roofs, and domes but there is also an interplay with natural forms like the iconic umbrella pines and other trees that line the street or are found in the parks.
In my mountain and Arctic series landscapes, massive forms of stone or ice, the surrounding emptiness, a sense of gravity, the fluidity of water, and the presence of animal inhabitants dictate how I use color and shape.
I begin with sketches, small paintings and photographs in the field. I bring these materials back to the studio, where I explore what makes these places beautiful, mysterious, or exciting to me . The paintings evolve; while some refer to real places, others spring from composite memories of shapes or vistas.
I began my most recent botanical series during the travel ban of the Covid 19 pandemic. Though based on a friend’s photograph posted to Instagram, it is the same interplay of shapes and color and an underlying sense of deep emotion that I experience in the presence of nature that drew me to reinterpret the floral specimens on canvas.
Artwork Featured: © Pia De Girolamo, Campanile Blu, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48”
CATALOG
Being There: The Rome Series
Solo Exhibition 2020
Collection: BOTANICAL SERIES
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Collection: 78°N 16°E: The Arctic SERIES
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78°N 16°E: The Arctic Series
Written by Pia De Girolamo
One week in the Svalbard Archipelago above the Arctic Circle in May of 2019 was all it took for this unforgettable environment to insinuate itself into my paintings. Since that trip, the Arctic landscape and fauna became the subject of a series of paintings. I have been to many rugged isolated locales but visiting the Arctic was like visiting another planet. Not only were there vast expanses of water and masses of ice in varied configurations but the light was unique. It lasted all day, for one. The sun never set but merely dipped to just above the horizon where it shown weakly before it rose up again. I never felt like sleeping. Changing light could transform a landscape from a blazing bright vision to a brooding, moody vista.
The local inhabitants were equally interesting. Polar bears, seals, walruses, pods of beluga whales, arctic terns and more revealed themselves. I felt like an interloper. As much as I was grateful to be taking this trip part of me felt that perhaps I shouldn’t have come. This place of pristine beauty had already been touched by humans, often quite savagely, for centuries; whale species decimated by the hundreds of thousands, failed mining operations, polar explorations by dogsled, plane and dirigible, and most recently, research stations and who knows what other secret installations, their satellite dishes and huts set down upon mountain tops . Climate change already affected the area and produced that first rains ever seen.
I brought a small sketch book and took lots of photos. When I got back to my studio, and reviewed them, the images flowed onto the canvas and panels and they kept on coming.
Coincidentally, the images of isolated landscapes resonated powerfully with the social distancing we were all doing while in lockdown during the COVID 19 pandemic. Layered upon the formalistic qualities of the painting as a reflection of the landscape and the powerful impressions arising from that immediate experience, was the experience of uncertainty, fear and disconnection produced by the pandemic.
The Anthropocene is fully upon us and we and successive generations will bear its consequences but perhaps we can still make things better for future generations by stopping the headlong rush to destroy the earth. I hope that these paintings are a reminder to others there is beauty and life and treasure at the top of the world that is worth saving. If we save it, we save ourselves. That this series ended up being shaped by my response to the realities of the pandemic also makes it one record of art created during an unprecedented planet-wide catastrophe.
PRESS
© Pia De Girolamo, Lotus, Pink Dream, Acrylic on canvas, 16” x 12”
Amie Potsic interviews artists and medical professionals Pia De Girolamo and Laurel Nevarte on Art Watch Radio about their collaborative artwork inspired by the healing aspects of nature during the pandemic. Communicating via social media, their collaboration between the east and west coasts began with calming visits to the Huntington Gardens in Los Angeles and later inspired paintings created in Philadelphia. Their work is a testament to the ability of art and nature to help us connect and heal despite being isolated by the virus and distance.
Cerulean Arts Collective Tour & Talk featuring Pia De Girolamo.
Click the video to watch the full segment featuring De Girolamo.
© Pia De Girolamo, Where are We Going?, Acrylic on panel, 12” x 12”
CURATOR STATEMENT
Written by Christine Stoughton, Curator
"She strips away the details to capture the vibration of colors, the geometric structure of the forms and the ambient space. While the viewer recognizes these abstracted works as a landscape, we are given the opportunity to see this environment in a whole new way, which is what art is all about".
Highlights Include:
Featured Artist Pia de Girolamo
A Virtual Exhibition catalog featuring work by John D. Woolsey, David Raymond, & John Wissemann
© Pia De Girolamo, Boat and Door, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 36” x 36”
21 Artists to Watch
Written by the Skinny Artist
© Pia De Girolamo, Carnevale, Acrylic on canvas, 20” x 20”
International Solo Exhibition Poster
© Pia De Girolamo, Green River, Midnight Blue Mountain, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 48”
To acquire artwork from Pia De Girolamo’s collection, email info@amiepotsicartadvisory.com.
Click here to download Pia De Girolamo’s CV.
To learn more about the artist: www.piadegirolamo.com.
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