Provenance: Provenance:
Private collection, Manila

Exhibited: Literature:
Findlay-Brown, Ian. Pacita Abad: Exploring the Spirit. National
Gallery of Indonesia. Jakarta. 1996. p. 104

Literature: Exhibited: Thinking Big, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, June 15 - July 31, 1995

ABOUT THE WORK

As undoubtedly one of the most well-known and influential Filipino artists on the world stage, visual artist and painter Pacita Abad’s oeuvres have proved themselves, time and time again, as not only mere paintings or works of art, but sweeping odes and hymns to the vitality, mystery, and diversity of human life and experience. Her thirty-year painting career began when she traveled to the United States to study law in San Francisco. It was there that she decided to switch careers and dedicate her life to painting. Since then Pacita never stopped being a gypsy and painted the globe while working on six different continents and traveling to more than fifty countries. Abad made history as the first woman to receive the Philippines’ prestigious Ten Outstanding Young Men award. This 1992 trapunto was one of Abad’s early advances into abstract art. Prior to this, she was creating mostly masks Tapestry of Life and representational subjects. Through this piece, Abad managed to revitalize a uniquely asian and oriental aesthetic philosophy with new and novel techniques and materials. Rapture is part of Abad’s monumental Asian Abstraction series that sought to combine Abad’s experience with traditional Korean brushwork and calligraphy, with her unique use of mixed media materials. The piece features a constellation of swirling colorful crescent-like elements seemingly converging at the work’s central focus—a concave rectangle rendered in a bright yellow hue. This emphasis on movement is seen as one of the core tenets of traditional Korean painting which itself emphasizes movement and the passage of time through directed shapes and brush techniques. Abad effectively brings this idea to life through a unique mix of materials such as acrylic paint, plastic buttons, mirrors, thread, and a padded canvas.