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Lot Essay
"I always see the world through colour, although my vision, perspective and paintings are constantly influenced by new ideas and changing environments. I feel like I am an ambassador of colours, always projecting a positive mood that helps make the world smile."
- Pacita Abad
A global citizen in every way, Pacita Abad spent her life and career creating works of art that she hoped would help to change the world for the better. Born on Basco, one of the northernmost islands of the Philippine archipelago, Abad spent her early years studying political science at the University of the Philippines, eventually moving to San Francisco in 1970 with the intention of pursuing a career in law. However, as she became more and more enamoured with the possibilities offered by a career in the arts, she decided to switch tracks to pursue painting instead, studying first at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and later, at The Art Students League in New York City. Vibrant and colourful, Abad's work incorporates elements from her own Filipino heritage as well as the cultures she encountered on her travels, exploring the universality of emotions expressed through colour and abstract form.
Over the course of her lifetime, Abad worked in over 6 different continents and travelled to more than 50 countries, living in far-flung locations including Bangladesh, Yemen, Sudan, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Her early work explored socio-political topics and depicted scenes inspired by her travels, but her most substantial body of work consists of abstract paintings executed using mediums ranging from paper to canvas, bark cloth, metal and glass. Textiles play a particularly important role in Abad's work – in many cultures around the world, fabric arts such as spinning, weaving and dyeing are traditionally considered women's work. By stitching scraps of fabric, beads, buttons and ribbon to her works on canvas, Abad found means to assert her unique identity as a female artist of colour working on the global stage, while incorporating found objects as symbolic of memory and place.
In Nights of Love (Lot 459), swirls of turquoise and scarlet paint evoke the carefree romance of a summer evening. Collaged pieces of found fabric add an additional layer of complexity to the painting, as the patterns and stitches interact with the bright brushstrokes. A work from her Endless Blues series, Nights of Love was painted while Abad was living in Singapore and battling with the lung cancer that plagued her in later years. In her own words, "like the blues, my paintings are always strong, sometimes sad, a bit nostalgic and very colourful." Aware of her mortality, Abad has imbued this work with all the energy and passion she felt for making art, expressing the beauty that she saw in the world around her and the sense of joy that defined her approach to her life's work.
- Pacita Abad
A global citizen in every way, Pacita Abad spent her life and career creating works of art that she hoped would help to change the world for the better. Born on Basco, one of the northernmost islands of the Philippine archipelago, Abad spent her early years studying political science at the University of the Philippines, eventually moving to San Francisco in 1970 with the intention of pursuing a career in law. However, as she became more and more enamoured with the possibilities offered by a career in the arts, she decided to switch tracks to pursue painting instead, studying first at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and later, at The Art Students League in New York City. Vibrant and colourful, Abad's work incorporates elements from her own Filipino heritage as well as the cultures she encountered on her travels, exploring the universality of emotions expressed through colour and abstract form.
Over the course of her lifetime, Abad worked in over 6 different continents and travelled to more than 50 countries, living in far-flung locations including Bangladesh, Yemen, Sudan, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Her early work explored socio-political topics and depicted scenes inspired by her travels, but her most substantial body of work consists of abstract paintings executed using mediums ranging from paper to canvas, bark cloth, metal and glass. Textiles play a particularly important role in Abad's work – in many cultures around the world, fabric arts such as spinning, weaving and dyeing are traditionally considered women's work. By stitching scraps of fabric, beads, buttons and ribbon to her works on canvas, Abad found means to assert her unique identity as a female artist of colour working on the global stage, while incorporating found objects as symbolic of memory and place.
In Nights of Love (Lot 459), swirls of turquoise and scarlet paint evoke the carefree romance of a summer evening. Collaged pieces of found fabric add an additional layer of complexity to the painting, as the patterns and stitches interact with the bright brushstrokes. A work from her Endless Blues series, Nights of Love was painted while Abad was living in Singapore and battling with the lung cancer that plagued her in later years. In her own words, "like the blues, my paintings are always strong, sometimes sad, a bit nostalgic and very colourful." Aware of her mortality, Abad has imbued this work with all the energy and passion she felt for making art, expressing the beauty that she saw in the world around her and the sense of joy that defined her approach to her life's work.