catia colagioia (b. 2001, Philadelphia) is a Philadelphia-based artist, researcher, and musician working across sculpture, installation, video, print, and performance. She has shown work across the Philadelphia area, and is an artist member of Vox Populi Gallery and Da Vinci Art Alliance, and holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of Pennsylvania.
Her practice is rooted in her ongoing traversal of Philadelphia. It engages the collection and resurrection of found materials and experiences, treating urban debris and overlooked objects as carriers of memory, pressure, and latent agency, often likening organic forms in the cityscape to our bodies: both held tenuously, and subject to the encircling pressures of modern systems.
Through processes of care, repair, and automatism, she reconfigures discarded materials into forms that feel simultaneously unfamiliar and deeply internal, drawing on a collective psychic language. These works often hold tension between the angelic and the abject, exposing the contradictions, failures, and residues of the systems that produce them. She is set on carrying the objects, (and by proxy, ourselves) past their (our) status as surplus matter, and into a new territory, where their (our) properties and histories empower them (us) to communicate in service of something larger.
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Upcoming exhibitions:
An Endless Meeting: Still Takes Minutes, Vox Populi Gallery, 10.2.26 - 11.5.26
opening reception 10.2.26, 6-10 pm.
Past exhibitions:
Take Care (Of Us), CFEVA @ 3600 Market, 7.16.26 - 9.4.26
OPEN, Gallery at Fabriq, 6.26.26 - 9.4.26
Precious Protection, Da Vinci Art Alliance, 7.28.26 - 8.23.26
MOUTHFUL, Vox Populi Gallery, 5.1.26 - 6.14.26
SOUL STAKE, Gray’s Warehouse, 3.20.26 - 4.26.26
we call the moon the people’s wife, Pentimenti Gallery, 1.30.26 - 4.4.26
Huddle, Vox Populi Gallery, 11.7.25 - 12.14.25
RESIST, Huddle Gallery. 11.21.25 - 11.23.25
Routine & Alchemy, Icebox Project Space, 11.18.25 - 11.23.25
this too is a threshold, AUTOMAT, 11.1.25 - 11.29.25
surplus, Vox Populi Gallery, 9.5.25 - 10.12.25
Low-Tech, Huddle Gallery, 3.13.25 - 3.25.25
stand/still, Charles Addams Gallery, 4.4.24 - 4.13.24
Sports!, Charles Addams Gallery, 11.29.23 - 12.7.23
let me know you are alright, Project Ieerie, 7.28.23 -8.18.23
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Press:
Space on Space Magazine, coverage for “MOUTHFUL” May 2026 (Image)
Space on Space Magazine, coverage for “SOUL STAKE” Mar 2026
Space on Space Magazine, coverage for “we call the moon the peoples wife” Mar 2026
34th St Mag, coverage for “we call the moon the peoples wife” Feb 2026
Penn Today, coverage for “let me know you are alright” Sep 2023
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Talks/Panels:
Alumni Panel, Weitzman School of Design, Feb ‘26.
surplus Artist Talk. Oct ‘25. Link here.
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For CV/portfolio, rights & reproductions, sales, and additonal inquiries, contact studio (at) catiacolagioia (dot) com
unless otherwise stated, all works herein are copyright of the artist & require written permission from the artist for reproduction. © catia colagioia, 2026.
MOUTHFUL
Curated by Blanche Brown,
Exhibited at Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. 1 May 2026 - 14 June 2026.
MOUTHFUL brings together artists working with, around, through, against, beneath, within, alongside language. Featuring over 15 artists engaging a diverse set of techniques and media, the exhibition situates key archival pieces beside new and contemporary works: flags, impossible shots, concrete slabs, worksheets, disco on repeat, and many holes.
Featuring: Robert Carey, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, China Rain Chung, Logan Cryer, Catia Colagioia, Jordan Deal, Lucia Garzón, Mona Gazala, Rachel Hsu, Tan Lin, M Slater, Lea Devon Sorrentino, Cecilia Vicuña, Eva Wu, Connie Yu, Janet Zweig
Photos by Constance Mensh.
work pictured: Semantics of Possession I, II, & III, and gentle delivery.
we call the moon the people’s wife
Exhibited at Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. 30 January 2026 - 4 April 2026.
Exhibition Text: Pentimenti and Vox Populi are pleased to co-present we call the moon the people’s wife, a collaborative project led by Blanche Brown, featuring Aitor Lajarin-Encina in collaboration with Vox Populi members Aaron Terry, catia colagioia, China Rain, Ella Konefal, Eva Wu, Eve Greensweig, Jim Strong, Lane Timothy Speidel, Natalie Hijinx, and Ollie Goss.
Within Lajarin-Encina’s sparse, architecturally driven nighttime scene painting, Vox artists contributed works that function as objects, signs, and propositions—a graphite drawing of a migraine aura, a small hand-painted flag bearing a diagram of self-alienation, a traffic cone. we call the moon the people’s wife considers collective art-making not as consensus or uniformity, but as negotiated collage. Can we share the same world for a while?
Part of Lajarin-Encina’s ongoing Collaborative Paintings series (initiated in 2020), this project invites artists and artist groups to create exhibitions within a painting. For this iteration, Lajarin-Encina worked collaboratively with Vox Populi members to develop an exhibition inside a painting of the empty lot adjacent to Vox Populi’s gallery spaces at 11th and Callowhill. In we call the moon the people’s wife, the lot operates as both subject and structure: a shared landscape shaped as much by what happens there as by what doesn’t.
Photos courtesy Pentimenti Gallery.
work pictured: to come, to go.
Philadelphia Artists Resist
Exhibited at Huddle Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. 21 November 2025 - 23 November 2025.
As part of the Fall of Freedom, artists Melanie Baker & Diane Burko organized “Philadelphia Artists Resist:” a pop-up exhibition featuring artists based in the Philadelphia area whose works challenge the issues of our times.
The artists featured are of varying ages, identities, backgrounds, and practices—but the unifying thread is their collective emphasis on diversity, freedom, advocacy, and resisting injustice & authoritarianism in their work.
The show weaves together many modes of resistance: from the adoption of protest language to the subversion of traditional American iconography and representations of American calamity and decay—all the works resist the rise of authoritative rule, aim to make unheard voices heard, and forefront repressed histories, as we currently face increasingly exploitative systems and the rise of American fascism.
Participating artists include: Melanie Baker, Reade Bryan, The Dufala Brothers, Diane Burko, Catia Colagioia, Heide Fasnacht, Mark Thomas Gibson, Sharon Hayes, Joe Heidecker, Gabe Martinez, Sarah McEneaney, Eileen Neff, Matt Neff, Rachel Selekman, Jonathan Wahl, Ed Waisnis, Jordan Weber & Charlotta Westergren.
Photos by Catia Colagioia.
work pictured: the system, the structure (after Lorde, after Foucault)
Routine and Alchemy
Exhibited at Show Town, Icebox Project Space, Philadelphia, PA. 18 November 2025 - 23 November 2025.
Curated by Logan Cryer
Featuring works by Catia Colagioia, Mason McAvoy & Morgan Prince.
“Three artists collecting wisps of magic from the daily concrete.”
Photos by Catia Colagioia.
works pictured; facets, artifacts, gentle delivery, we are, & when the truth emerges, what must recede
This Too Is A Threshold
Exhibited at AUTOMAT Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, 1 November 2025 - 29 November 2025
In an attempt to mend the rift generated by the dominant cultural understanding of the hero, the membership of Vox Populi present This Too Is A Threshold, a group exhibition testing the gold weight of the narrative monomyth*–where the understanding of myth itself returns to its roots–where it is not understood as something which is singular, fantastical, or untrue, but instead understood as the emergence of inherited and collective truth.
Myths, in their original sense, are about what matters most to us in this world, where we can touch the timeless imagery and archetypes from which the living world arose. What does one heart beat sound like reverberating through the body of an assembly? What of intimacy and dispute, of hurt and repair? What of the largeness of collective liberation? What can we make of departure, or of return? What do we make of all the thresholds and choices in between?
This Too Is A Threshold serves as one half of a collective swap between AUTOMAT Collective and Vox Populi. Both artist-run spaces will be exhibiting the work of their members at each other’s respective gallery spaces in Philadelphia.
*Monomyth: The monomyth, is a universal narrative template describing a hero's adventure into a supernatural world to achieve a decisive victory and return transformed. Identified by Joseph Campbell in his book “The Hero With A Thousand Faces,” it's a common pattern in myths and stories across cultures, involving stages like the departure, the initiation, and the return.
The exhibition features works by Aaron Terry, Catia Colagioia, Ella Konefal, Eva Wu, Eve Greensweig, Gregory Donell Parker, Jim Strong, KT Pe Benito, Lane Timothy Speidel, Lea Devon Sorrentino, Melissa Langer, Raúl Romero, & Yuheng Shao.
Photos above taken by Catia Colagioia, and edited by Ella Konefal.
work pictured: touching the other side (it is the restraint)
surplus
Exhibited at Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, 5 September 2025 - 12 October 2025
Artist talk available at this link.
‘surplus’ welcomes the eight newest members of Vox Populi: catia colagioia, China Rain, Ella Konefal, Eva Wu, Kat Nzingha, Liam Paris, Logan Cryer and Ollie Goss. The octet creates art with accumulated materials, whether they be paperwork, dreams, memories, fears or junk. The resulting hoards are presented with impending empathy. Viewers are asked to consider what is the stuff that we are really made of and what can be done with all the rest.
Video above by Ross Pannebecker.
Photos above by Catia Colagioia.
works pictured: cradle for a new dawn chorus, study for the cradle, artifact i & ii, project delay i & ii, watched / watching (though chainlink), gut feels gut knows gut tells, & everything will continue, everything will change.
Low - Tech
Exhibited at Huddle, Philadelphia, PA, 13 March 2025 - 25 March 2025.
The exhibition assembled work from fourteen artists working in a variety of media. Many works are made from recovered materials, such as construction debris, unaccounted data from modern image processing, image transfer negatives, and the electronics inside of a broken insulin pump. Others display a panoply of technological methods and outcomes such as antique electronic phones, handmade electronic instruments, bone conduction, hand-altered film for motion pictures, and low powered devices. The curation of pieces in the show is an offering to indulge in the tension held by the premise of Low Tech.
The show included work by: Catia Colagioia, Charlie Manion, David Rios, Francesca Lally, Gregory Kramer, Hannah Tardie, Jamison Mead, Jazmyn Crosby, Kelly Chen + Caleb Chase, Logan Crompton, Maddie Brucker, Noah Kernis, Ollie Goss, Rachael Henson, and Cristian Varela. Curated by Hannah Tardie & Ollie Goss.
Photos above by Catia Colagioia.
Photos above by Calvin Leon.
work pictured: construction elevator.
stand/still
Exhibited at Charles Addams Fine Arts Gallery, Philadelphia PA, 3 April - 14 April 2024.
Photos above by Anna Neighbor.
work pictured: construction elevator, monument, a line to not cross, artifacts (series), photosynthesis (post-mortem), & elegy.
SPORTS!
Exhibited at Charles Addams Fine Arts Gallery, Philadelphia PA, 29 November - 7 December 2023.
Photographs by Michael Heath.
work pictured: to know not what you need, funeral object (to not believe in goneness), i put my heart down on the county line, girl at play, splint structure/nest #1, artifact 1, & don’t let anything get to you.