catia colagioia

catia colagioia (b. 2001) is an artist, researcher & musician born and raised and based in South Philadelphia, with a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in Fine Art. She has shown work across Philadelphia and has been recognized for her interdisciplinary, community-facing work. She is currently an artist member of Vox Populi Gallery.

Her process is rooted in her traversal of Philadelphia, in her collection and resurrection of found objects and memories, often likening organic forms in the cityscape to our bodies: both held tenuously, and subject to the encircling pressures of modern systems. There is a shifty logic applied to the objects she uses through her attempts to construct something physically unfamiliar yet already existent within the collective psyche. While her work possesses an uncanny, angelic quality, it also embodies the systems she references, and their by-products, shoddy barriers, and hypocriticalities. She applies care, repair, and automatism as methodologies, instinctually relating and tending closely to the desires of the objects she uses.

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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Click here to view my CV.

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Upcoming exhibitions:

we call the moon the people’s wife, Pentimenti Gallery, 1.30.26 - 4.4.26
Opening Reception: 1.30.26 6-8 pm. Artists’ Dialogue 6-6:30 pm.
Soul Stake, Venue TBA, 3.13.26 - 4.19.26

Past exhibitions:

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, CAFA Gallery, 7.28.23 -8.18.23

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unless otherwise stated, all works herein are copyright of the artist & require written permission from the artist for reproduction. © catia colagioia, 2026.

systemically attached to pain, to play, to a body , 2023 - ongoing

found object (crutches, straps, plastic rope knee brace, body, quickrete, plywood strips) sculpture, video, concrete casting

performance of varying duration, size expansive

This project refers to a knee injury I sustained. Finding proper care for the injury, as well as care for my generalized chronic pain has been frustrating... Knee braces don't seem to help, and other contraptions are expensive. I pictured my leg as a sapling on the city street with tension supports (that you often find flopped over) strapped to it. I thought about how these saplings are situated in such a hostile environment, with fumes everywhere, roots surrounded by pipes and concrete. I thought about how our own bodies are in situated, and how our systems of care fall short, just as those saplings’ tension supports do.

I decided to collect these frustrations and channel them into this exploration, getting back into my body, and turning these points of frustration into points of imagination and play. I’ve been recording videos with a camera strapped to my affected leg to understand its perspective and the pain as it accumulates. I’ve been collecting objects of care like crutches and braces, collecting objects that articulate like knees, casting them into concrete, and putting my body into and around these objects, exploring them, and exploring my own physical abilities. I’m continually excited to work on this project, examining the relationships between frustration, play, systems of care, industry, the built environment, and the body.

Humanscale Knee, Embedded. 2023, Articulating mount, plaster, concrete, plastic. (as installed with series)