catia colagioia

catia colagioia (b. 2001, she/her/they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher & musician from South Philadelphia with a BA (’24) from the University of Pennsylvania in fine art. catia's process is rooted in her traversal of Philadelphia, in her collection and resurrection of found objects, in the investigation of the objects' memories, and in the systems that deemed those objects obsolete, useless, trash.

There is a shifty logic applied to the objects she uses through her attempts to construct something physically unfamiliar yet already existent within her psyche. While her work possesses an uncanny, angelic quality, it also embodies the systems she references, and their by-products, their shoddy barriers, and their hypocriticalities. She applies care and repair as methodologies, tending closely to the desires of the objects she uses. There is a desire to carry the objects past their status as waste, and into a new territory, where they may allow their properties and histories to communicate in service of something larger.

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Click here to view my CV.

Artist member of Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia, PA.

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Upcoming shows:

surplus, Vox Populi Gallery, 9/5/25 - 10/12/2025
opening reception: 9/5/25; 6-10 pm
closing reception: 10/3/2025; 6-9 pm

[title forthcoming], AUTOMAT Gallery, opens 11/1/25
opening reception: 11/13/25; 6-9 pm

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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, 2025.

through chainlink, watch the big mouth eat the earth, 2023

35 mm film prints, photogram

8 in x 10 in

With the recent boom in development in Philadelphia, there are palpable feelings of invasion, vulnerability, and theft. It feels like a dark cloud passing over the community, as many of my neighbors and my family–just like so many folks from other low-income neighborhoods in Philadelphia and beyond–are being actively pushed out of their communities.The photographs focus on sites of development, surveillance devices, and barriers to entry (physical and legal)–from dismembered chain link fences and tall black wooden barriers to signs that note police limits or the invocation of the threat of legal consequence (trespassing violation) to a once publicly accessible park.

While printing the photographs, I utilized a photogram technique to create another layer of obstruction. The semiotics of the photogrammed objects (barbed wire and chain link) are complicated, invoking a careless claim to ownership, invoking the racist and classist history of trespassing laws, and more simply, standing as a bulletin for outdated zoning permits and graffitied construction company signs, a reminder of the cascading and lasting damage of colonial land dynamics.