Pacita Abad

I both love and hate it when I learn about an artist I never knew of before. I mostly love it, but I admit I feel disgruntled at myself for not knowing sooner.

That's how I felt soon after the most recent newsletter arrived from the Walker Art Center early this spring with a photo of Filipina multimedia artist Pacita Abad on the front. 

Abad's signature after it had evolved to its mature form.

 

When I flipped to the pages that showed a photo of one of the galleries filled with some of her trapunto masks, I knew she was an artist I should have known about long before. Then when I found out she had died nearly 20 years ago, at the age of 57, I knew even more that I had missed out.

But at least I would get to see this first retrospective exhibit of her work.

"Orchids in Bangkok," 1979. One of her earliest paintings, from the time when she was studying at the Art Students League of New York.

"Baguio Fruit," 1981–83. Abad created her trapunto technique after red wine was spilled on this tablecloth, which used to be white. She painted over the stain, then sewed outlines and turned the fruits into 3D forms. The piece is named for a city in the Cordillera Mountains in the Philippines.

Detail from "Baguio Fruit," 1981–83.

Detail from one of the "Masks from Six Continents," a commission for Metro Center in Washington, D.C., 1990–1993.

The self portrait on this poster became a recurring image Abad used throughout her career (you can see it used as a logo on her website).

The retrospective, not surprisingly, is a very large show, and I'm only showing a tiny part of it. I'm not showing the trapunto masks, except a few details. If you're here in the Twin Cities, go see it — you have to see it (and them) in person through September 3. If you're not here, there are probably better pictures online than I can take.

Instead, I want to share a few other pieces, which I will put in chronological order instead of the order they're arranged in the show.

"Pulang Buli off Batangas," 1986. Acrylic, mirrors, buttons, cotton yarn on stitched and padded canvas. This work is part of large set of Underwater Wilderness paintings, inspired by Abad's experiences while scuba diving.

"Filipina: A Racial Identity Crisis," 1992. Lithograph. Two archetypes of Filipinas: light-skinned Maria Isabel Lopez and dark-skinned Liwayway Etnika, the former Hispanicized and wearing clothes associated with elites, the latter with a Tagalog name and Indigenous Philippine patterns in her clothing. I was interested in seeing how Abad's intense colors translated to the inks of lithography.

"L.A. Liberty," 1992. Acrylic, cotton yarn, plastic buttons, mirrors, gold thread, painted cloth on stitched and padded canvas. This piece dominates the space as you enter the second exhibit room. Abad had visited Ellis Island and was the absence of most kinds of immigrants. In this work, "L.A." stands not just for Los Angeles but also for Latin American.

"Cross-cultural Dressing (Julia, Amina, Maya and Sammy)," 1993. Oil, cloth, plastic buttons on stitched and padded canvas. This was made at the height of the sweatshop controversy.

"100 Years of Freedom: From Batanes to Jolo," 1998. Oil, acrylic, Philippine cloth (abaca, pineapple, jusi and banana fibers; Baguio ikat; Batanas cotton crochet; llocano cotton; Chinese silk and bead; Spanish silk, llongo cloth; Mindanao beads; Zamboanga and Yakan handwoven cloth and sequins) on stitched and dyed cotton fabric. "...a complex narrative of the history of the Philippines."

The Philippines has 182 ethnolinguistic groups, of which 110 are Indigenous. It was a Maritime waystation for Asia, the Americas, and Europe before colonization. Then it was colonized by the Spanish, Japanese, and Americans. Abad collected fabric from her travels and from family heirlooms, then used them in this piece. It was first exhibited for the country's centennial celebration.

 

"The Sky Is Falling, the Sky Is Falling," 1998. Oil, plastic buttons, plastic beads, painted cloth on stitched and padded canvas. This painting was created while Abad was living in Indonesia.

I could have spent at least an hour studying this painting, though I would have needed a ladder to study all of it. Here are two details:

Another abstract that I particularly liked:

"Spring Is Coming," 2001. Oil, painted cloth on stitched canvas. I'm not sure, but I think it may have been painted around the time Abad was diagnosed with cancer.

Akaff Bridge, 2003–2004. Abad's design for this pedestrian bridge in Manila was finished a few months before she died.

Here's an article from one of our local news websites about the exhibit with a few more photos and good info.