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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Current exhibitions:
MOUTHFUL, Vox Populi Gallery, 5.1.26 - 6.14.26
opening reception: 5.1.26, 6-10 pm.
Upcoming exhibitions:
Precious Protection, Da Vinci Art Alliance, 7.28.26 - 8.23.26
opening reception: 8.1.26, 5-7 pm.
closing reception: 8.23.26, 12-2 pm.
Recent exhibitions:
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
Talks/Panels:
Alumni Panel, Weitzman School of Design, Feb ‘26.
surplus Artist Talk. Oct ‘25. Link here.
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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.
through chainlink, watch the big mouth eat the earth, 2023
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.