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Lot Essay
A collage of batik fabric and oil paints, Blue by the prolific Filipino artist Pacita Abad exudes a dynamic confidence of brush and needlework. Hues of blue and earth tones dominate the painting with colours radiating from the canvas surface. Hailing from her last major series Endless Blues, the present lot was executed two years before Abad's passing in 2004. During this period, her vibrant mixed media collages reflect the artist's tenacity for creating texture and luminosity.
Blue, like other abstract works of this period, has an emotional quality to it as the islands of patterned fabric weave in and out of spontaneous strokes of rich colour. Pacita Abad was an artist with a focus and a passion, pouring her personal life experiences and travels into her work. Abad's adventurous spirit took her across the globe, inspiring her artistic developments and impacting many ideas and techniques seen in her creative oeuvre. Her socio-political and figurative works of people, masks and nature from her early period evolved into an impressionistic representation with shapes, colours and texture. With that, the artist began incorporating materials and objects that she collected from her trips, including beautiful traditional textiles like ikat, batik, bark cloth and more from the Indonesian archipelago and beyond.
Throughout her battle with cancer from 2001-2004, Abad worked predominantly from her studio, lulled by the therapeutic melody of blues music as she painstakingly sewed cloth onto canvases, uniting them with expansive applications of paint. Blue, along with the rest of this series, mirrors the artist's psychological and emotional state of mind and body as she tussled with the uncertain state of her mortality. Music set the mood and translated nostalgia, melancholy and the rhythmic beats into bold and meaningful compositions.
Through the abstract myriad of colours and brushed work - the painting presents itself as an experience for any viewer. The sensory nature portrayed through the tactile and intrinsic detailing, leaves one immersed in the expressiveness and the vibrant impact of the painting.
Blue, like other abstract works of this period, has an emotional quality to it as the islands of patterned fabric weave in and out of spontaneous strokes of rich colour. Pacita Abad was an artist with a focus and a passion, pouring her personal life experiences and travels into her work. Abad's adventurous spirit took her across the globe, inspiring her artistic developments and impacting many ideas and techniques seen in her creative oeuvre. Her socio-political and figurative works of people, masks and nature from her early period evolved into an impressionistic representation with shapes, colours and texture. With that, the artist began incorporating materials and objects that she collected from her trips, including beautiful traditional textiles like ikat, batik, bark cloth and more from the Indonesian archipelago and beyond.
Throughout her battle with cancer from 2001-2004, Abad worked predominantly from her studio, lulled by the therapeutic melody of blues music as she painstakingly sewed cloth onto canvases, uniting them with expansive applications of paint. Blue, along with the rest of this series, mirrors the artist's psychological and emotional state of mind and body as she tussled with the uncertain state of her mortality. Music set the mood and translated nostalgia, melancholy and the rhythmic beats into bold and meaningful compositions.
Through the abstract myriad of colours and brushed work - the painting presents itself as an experience for any viewer. The sensory nature portrayed through the tactile and intrinsic detailing, leaves one immersed in the expressiveness and the vibrant impact of the painting.