Pacita Abad

Pacita Abad (1946-2004) è stata un’artista moderna. Nata a Basco, Batanes, una piccola isola nella parte settentrionale delle Filippine, Fra Luzon e Taiwan. La sua carriera è iniziata quando ha viaggiato per gli Stati Uniti per intraprendere gli studi universitari. Ha partecipato a più di 50 gruppi di viaggio e mostre in tutto il mondo.
Oggi possiamo trovare i suoi lavori presso alcune collezioni d’arte private e pubbliche in oltre 70 paesi.La pittura di Pacita è caratterizzata da continui cambiamenti e sperimentazione effettuate dal 1970.
I suoi primi dipinti si concentravano principalmente sulla raffigurazione di maschere primitive. Un’altra serie di dipinti è stata realizzata su larga scala ritraenti scene subacquee, fiori tropicali e la fauna selvatica. Caratteristica principale dell’arte di Pacita è la sua vibrante e colorata vena astratta, come alcune sue tele di grandi dimensioni, ma anche una serie di collage più piccoli, utilizzando una vasta gamma di materiali, carta di corteccia di stoffa, metallo, ceramica e vetro. Pacita ha creato oltre 3500 opere d’arte e inoltre dipinto il ponte di Singapore lungo 55 metri, coprendolo con 2350 cerchi multicolori.

Ati-Atihan (1983). Acrylic on stitched and padded canvass.

Pacita Abad

Ati-Atihan (1983) by Pacita Abad. Acrylic on stitched and padded canvass.

Pacita Abad

Untitled, 1984

Pacita Abad (October 5, 1946 – December 7, 2004) was born in Basco, Batanes, a small island in the northernmost part of the Philippines, between Luzon and Taiwan. Her more than 30-year painting career began when she traveled to the United States to undertake graduate studies. She exhibited her work in over 200 museums, galleries and other venues, including 75 solo shows, around the world. Abad's work is now in public, corporate and private art collections in over 70 countries.

Personal Life and Education

Abad earned a BA in political science at the University of the Philippines in 1967. In 1970, she went to the United States intending to study law, but instead earned a degree (MA) in Asian History at Lone Mountain College (University of San Francisco) in 1972 where she supported herself as a seamstress and a typist. 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 6 different continents and worked in more than 50 countries, including Guatemala, Mexico, India, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Indonesia. At Corcoran School of Art Pacita studied under Berthold Schmutzhart and Blaine Larson in which the two professors had helped launch her artistic career. Pacita then further pursued her studies at The Art Students League in New York where she concentrated on still life and figurative drawing under John Helicker and Robert Beverly Hale.

During Pacita's time in San Francisco art scene she had married painter George Kleiman, though they later separated. She then decided to hitchhike across Asia for a year with Jack Garrity, and then returned to the U.S. to study painting, first at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and later, at The Art Students League in New York City While in California, she then married Stanford MBA student, Jack Garrity, who became an international development economist.

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 4,500 artworks. She painted a 55-meter long Alkaff Bridge in Singapore and covered it with 2,350 multicolored circles, just a few months before she died.
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
Pacita had also received numerous awards during her artistic career in which her most memorable award was her first. Pacita had received the TOYM Award for Art in the Philippines in 1984. Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) is an award that has always been given to men for the last 25 years until in 1984 where Pacita Abad became the first woman ever to receive this prestigious award. In Pacita receiving this award it had created a public uproar where angry letters sent to editors of published newspapers from men and male artists who thought that they, not Pacita, should have received the award. Despite such uproar Pacita was thrilled that she had broken the sex barrier in which she stated in her acceptance speech that “it was long overdue that Filipina women were recognized, as the Philippines was full of outstanding women” and referred proudly to her mother.

Legacy

The Fundacion Pacita Batanes Nature Lodge in Basco, Batanes, "was lovingly refurbished" by her brother, Butch Abad.

Quote

"I always see the world through color, although my vision, perspective and paintings are constantly influenced by new ideas and changing environments. I feel like I am an ambassador of colors, always projecting a positive mood that helps make the world smile."