Pia Stern

Self Portrait I

1994

Pia Stern spent her junior year abroad in Aix-en-Provence, the town in the south of France where Paul Cézanne lived and worked. There she took her first painting course and felt instantly at home with her instructors’ philosophical and visual perceptions of the world. Returning to UC Berkeley as a senior, she enrolled in the art program and was greatly influenced by several artists who were integral to the Bay Area Figurative Movement including Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Joan Brown and most notably, Elmer Bischoff, with whom she worked very closely. Stern is primarily a process painter, and is known for her exploration of symbolic language. As stated by noted author and art critic Sister Wendy Beckett in "Contemporary Women Artists:" “Pia Stern…has an unusual power of transforming her ‘dreams’ into our own…The artist seeks out the great secrets of the heart and bodies them forth.” Using oil paints and drawing materials in an intuitive manner, she rarely approaches her work with a preconceived idea. She may put down a quick gestural stroke, a dab of color or a general shape, yet this is just a starting point for her. Like an archeologist, she approaches the canvas as if on a ‘dig’, adding and subtracting, waiting for the meaning of the piece to reveal itself through the mark making process. Her work is held in galleries, museums, public and private collections nationwide, and has been critically acclaimed in newspapers, books and journal reviews. She has a studio in Little Italy in San Diego, and her work is currently represented in San Francisco at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery and The Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery, and in Honolulu by Fine Arts Associates. EDUCATION 1978 University of California, Berkeley, M.F.A. 1977 University of California, Berkeley, M.A. 1975 University of California, Berkeley, B.A. SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 Blue Azul Gallery, La Jolla, CA 2008 The Lobby Gallery, 455 Market, San Francisco, CA 2007 Cheryl Pelavin Gallery, N.Y., N.Y. Palette Café Art Gallery, Healdsburg, CA 2005 Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2002 Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2001 The Contemporary Museum of Honolulu, First Hawaiian Bank, Honolulu, HI 2000 The San Francisco Museum of Art Artist's Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1999 Erickson & Elins Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1997 Erickson & Elins Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1995 Erickson & Elins Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1993 Caplan Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1992 Esther Saks Gallery, Chicago, IL Arlene Lew Allen Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1991 Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, Monterey, CA 1990 Esther Saks Gallery, Chicago, IL Andrea Ross Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1989 Jeremy Stone Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1988 Esther Saks Gallery, Chicago, IL 1987 Jeremy Stone Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1985 Jeremy Stone Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1979 Both-Up Gallery, Berkeley, CA