An exploration of distant vistas and daily views as landscapes of belonging in paintings
Pia DeGirolamo
“In Italy, I’m not fully Italian. In the U.S., I often feel detached when I witness how isolated this country is becoming. Travel helps me stay open. It reminds me how much we can learn when we step outside our own frame of reference.”
At Home and Abroad presents a series of acrylic paintings by Pia De Girolamo that explore the contrast between faraway landscapes and familiar surroundings, executed in her bold, colorful style. The exhibition includes works inspired by her travels through Patagonia, the Canadian Rockies, and Italy, shown alongside scenes drawn from everyday life in and around Philadelphia. From sweeping mountain vistas to suburban walking trails and city bridges, they reflect DeGirolamo’s ongoing interest in how place shapes experience—and how memory, movement, and observation shape her paintings.
Working from sketches, photographs, and her own visual impressions, De Girolamo builds each painting as a kind of map—not a literal one, but an emotional and sensory record. In her studio, she revisits places she’s been, letting memory and intuition guide her choices in color, form, and composition. The resulting work ranges from loose abstraction to structured geometry, with attention to both natural formations and the built environment.
Pia DeGirolamo is a painter whose primary medium is acrylic on canvas who lines in the Greater Philadelphia area. She has exhibited extensively. Her painting, “Invasion” was reproduced and installed in the group exhibition “Art X Climate” at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History Hall of Oceans in April 2025. A selection of her work has been juried into the “Celebration of Art and Life” exhibition at Penn Medicine 2025-26.
She is represented in a museum collection in the Musei Di San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome, Italy and in corporate collections including those of PNC Bank Tower Headquarters, Pittsburgh, PNC Bank Corporate Office, Berwyn, PA, PNC Wealth Management, Bluebell PA, and Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.
She received a BA in Art History with a concentration in Architecture from Barnard College, Columbia University and an MD degree from the University of Rochester. She lectures on the intersection between Art and Medicine and the inter-relationship of Art, Nature and Health.
For more information on the Artist: www.piadegirolamo.com
Pennswood Art Gallery exhibits the work of contemporary artists and artisans working in a wide variety of styles and mediums. The gallery brings high quality original work to residents of Bucks County and its surroundings. For more than forty years, it has exhibited the work of nationally famous and regionally prominent artists. Located in Pennswood Village, Newtown, PA, the non-profit gallery is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.
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For information about this and future exhibits, or exhibit opportunities, contact PennswoodArtGallery@gmail.com