Pacita Abad
Encyclopedia
Pacita Abad was born in Basco, Batanes
, a small island in the northernmost part of the Philippines
, between Luzon and Taiwan. Her more than 32-year painting career began when she travelled to the United States to undertake graduate studies. She had over 40 solo exhibitions at museums and galleries in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. She also participated in more than 50 group and traveling exhibitions throughout the world. Abad’s work is now in public, corporate and private art collections in over 70 countries.
in Singapore
and covered it with 2,350 multicolored circles.
Abad developed a technique of trapunto painting (named after a quilting technique), which entailed stitching and stuffing her painted canvases to give them a three-dimensional, sculptural effect. She then began incorporating into the surface of her paintings materials such as traditional cloth, mirrors, beads, shells, plastic buttons and other objects.
Batanes
The Province of Batanes , also called the Batanes Islands, is a Philippine province comprising ten islands that are located in the Luzon Strait between the islands of Luzon and Taiwan...
, a small island in the northernmost part of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, between Luzon and Taiwan. Her more than 32-year painting career began when she travelled to the United States to undertake graduate studies. She had over 40 solo exhibitions at museums and galleries in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. She also participated in more than 50 group and traveling exhibitions throughout the world. Abad’s work is now in public, corporate and private art collections in over 70 countries.
Life
Abad studied painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and The Art Students League in New York City. She lived on 5 different continents and working in more than 80 countries, including Guatemala, Mexico, India, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Indonesia.Works
Her early paintings were primarily figurative socio-political works of people and primitive masks. Another series was large scale paintings of underwater scenes, tropical flowers and animal wildlife. Pacita’s most extensive body of work, however, is her vibrant, colorful abstract work - many very large scale canvases, but also a number of small collages - on a range of materials from canvas and paper to bark cloth, metal, ceramics and glass. Abad created over 5,000 artworks and painted a 55-meter long Alkaff BridgeAlkaff Bridge
Alkaff Bridge is a pedestrian bridge in Singapore. It spans the Singapore River at Robertson Quay, located in the Singapore River planning area within the Central Area, Singapore's Central Business District....
in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and covered it with 2,350 multicolored circles.
Abad developed a technique of trapunto painting (named after a quilting technique), which entailed stitching and stuffing her painted canvases to give them a three-dimensional, sculptural effect. She then began incorporating into the surface of her paintings materials such as traditional cloth, mirrors, beads, shells, plastic buttons and other objects.