VIRTUAL EXHIBITION
pia de girolamo: THE MOUNTAIN SERIES
This virtual exhibition is based on Pia De Girolamo’s Mountain Series exhibit
at the Musei Di San Salvatore in Rome, Italy. Exhibition catalogue essay written by Amie Potsic.
The Mountain Series: Quiet Magnitude
Catalogue essay by Amie Potsic | CEO & Principal Curator, Amie Potsic Art Advisory, LLC
Pia De Girolamo's colorful, subtle, and abstracted Mountain Series paintings are forged from the interaction of being in a singular landscape and the memory of that experience. 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. Influenced by American Modernists of the 20th century including Milton Avery, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O'Keefe, her work harnesses paint and shape to express space and time in the landscape. De Girolamo’s paintings are a celebration of the breathtaking and relentless landscapes of the Canadian Rockies, Patagonia, Iceland, and the American Southwest.
The physical acts of hiking in the mountains and painting in the studio lyrically commingle in her Mountain Series. During challenging explorations in the field, she makes color sketches and visual notes. Then, while painting in the studio, she retraces her steps reaching the summits again in mental and physical memory. She creates abstracted and composite landscapes that are bold, nuanced, and enliven the senses. De Girolamo’s brushstrokes reveal the physicality of her painting style, which is quietly attuned to a visceral natural world.
Underlying this sensuality, her color palette and elemental shapes speak to the metaphysical. Addressing the landscape from the perspective of how one feels in its presence is central to the emotive quality of De Girolamo’s work. Rather than depicting the mountain range before her, she paints the essence of being in the landscape faced with the impossible magnitude of its peaks and valleys. A strength of voice and unique point of view are created through composition, color, and gesture.
It is a pleasure to take in De Girolamo’s paintings as one does an impressive vista - with curiosity, appreciation, and gratitude. Her Mountain Series is an unsentimental yet loving recognition of the geological formation of the earth as well as our ability to experience its majesty in our own lives and minds.
THE MOUNTAIN SERIES
Pia De Girolamo, Blue Towers, Acrylic on canvas 40” x 60”, Private Collection
Pia De Girolamo, The Horns (Los Cuernos), Acrylic on paper 22.5” x 30”
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Pia De Girolamo, Glaciers/Mountains, Acrylic on Canvas, 40” x 30”
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Pia De Girolamo, Distant Towers, Acrylic on paper 22.5” x 30”
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Pia De Girolamo, Lago Grey, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 48”, Private Collection
Pia De Girolamo, Patagonia Vista, 40” x 60”, Acrylic on canvas, Private Collection
Pia De Girolamo, Mountains and Cows, Acrylic on canvas, 40” x 60”, Private collection.
Pia De Girolamo, Blue Mountain, Lake and Forest, Acrylic on canvas, 22”x34.5”
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Pia De Girolamo, Far Ranges, Acrylic on canvas, 30”x40”
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Pia De Girolamo, Open Road, Acrylic on paper, 22.5”x 30”
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Pia De Girolamo, Southwest Vista, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x48”
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Pia De Girolamo, Big Blue Sea Cliff, Acrylic on canvas, 36”x48”
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Pia De Girolamo, Green Waterfall and Cliffs, Acrylic on canvas, 57” x 78”
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Pia De Girolamo, Lake in The Forest, Pink Sky, Acrylic on canvas 40” x 60”, Private Collection
Pia De Girolamo, Pink Bluffs, Acrylic on canvas, 30” x 40”
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Pia De Girolamo, Mountain and Waterfall, Acrylic on canvas, 30”x40”
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Pia De Girolamo, Mountain Hike, Acrylic on canvas, 30”x40”
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Pia De Girolamo, Dyrhólaey, Acrylic on canvas, 36”x48”, In museum collection of the Musei di San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome.
Pia De Girolamo, Green River, Midnight Blue Mountain, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 48”, Private Collection
Pia De Girolamo: 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.
In October of 2018 I had the honor of presenting my Mountain Series, a collection of large-scale paintings based on abstracted mountain landscapes and geologic forms, at the Museo Mastroianni, part of the Musei di San Salvatore in Lauro in Rome, Italy. I have ancestral roots and close ties to Italy, and Rome has been a “home away from home” since childhood. This was my first international exhibition. My painting, Dyrhòlaey was selected to remain in the museum’s permanent collection.
Biography
Mountain Series exhibit at the Musei Di San Salvatore in Rome, Italy.
Pia De Girolamo is an accomplished painter living and working in the Greater Philadelphia area whose recent work includes a series of large-scale paintings based on abstracted mountain landscapes and geologic forms. She has had eleven solo exhibitions, most recently at 3rd Street Gallery and Cerulean Arts Gallery in Philadelphia, and shown extensively in group exhibitions regionally. DeGirolamo has a BA in Art History from Barnard College, Columbia University and an MD degree from the University of Rochester. She lectures on the relationship between art and medicine as well as the connections between art, nature, and health.
Her awarded work has been acquired for collections by PNC Bank and Thomas Jefferson University and has been highlighted in Hollywood feature films. Most recently, De Girolamo had a solo exhibition of her Mountain Series paintings at the Museo Mastroianni, within the Musei di San Salvatore in Lauro in Rome in October of 2018.