In praise of Pacita Abad
Once I had a lingering encounter with a painting at the home of Ambassador Sonia Cataumber Brady. I stood before a frame of dominant shades of baffling blue, motifs of the sea accented with sparkling glass shards and bursts of colors that cheered the entire montage. The enigma of the tableau never left me. “It is a gift from the artist, my friend Pacita Abad,” Ambassador Brady told me. At the bottom of the artwork, which I eventually learned is called trapunto, is the noticeable autograph of the artist.
Over the years, that happenstance with Pacita’s art and anything about her had become a fascination. Spending days at the breathtaking Fundacion Pacita in Batanes a few years back, while marveling at the galleries and her studio, was one of the closest things I did to honor her.
As the birds happily heralded the arrival of spring here in New York, I received an email that her works will be exhibited from April to September 2024 at the MoMA PS1, a museum located at the borough where we reside. I beamed at how fortunate we are to commune with her art again. Beneath her name – PACITA ABAD – blaring in bold blue at the gallery entrance is a narrative of the exhibition. It’s a first ever retrospective of her “32-year career spanning a range of subjects from globally inspired masks and intimate portrayals of immigrant lives to patterned abstractions.”
As we celebrate our 126th year of independence, I find it timely to contemplate on Pacita’s opus and her life as a pioneering Filipina: a student leader and activist, a trailing wife, an immigrant, a patriot, a lover of life and more, who passionately and prolifically devoted more than three decades of her career in creating multi-dimensional arts of multi-faceted themes.
Pacita channeled features of her character and events of her time in art forms, brooding of her deepest affections like her love of country. One particular art she created in time for the Philippines’ centennial celebration was “100 Years of Freedom from Batanes to Jolo.” As I pored over her masterpiece – a medley of upturned triangular tapestries that draped a massive wall of the museum’s fourth floor gallery – I was once again captivated by her genius.
