Pacita Abad

Pacita Abad – The images presented are taken from the new publication Pacita Abad, the first-ever, superbly designed retrospective devoted to this exuberant, internationally-roaming Filipino artist, who created “trapunto” artworks combining painting with embroidery and other aspects of fiber-based artistic creation. “Textiles, for Abad, were more than a material consideration,” writes Victoria Sung, curator of the Walker exhibition. “They constituted a theoretical modality – one that integrated feminist, transnational and decolonial strategies – in their designer’s insistence on seeing fabric as painting, sewing as work and ornamentation as purpose. Just as Congolese sapeurs (and today’s sapeuses, as they are known) mixed and matched different items of European clothing to create bold, elegant ensembles, Abad created his own compositional aesthetic using the trapunto technique (from the Italian word trapungere meaning “to embroider”). Abad describes trapunto in simple terms: I paint with oil or acrylic on a canvas, then make a collage. This top layer carries the drawing. I add a backdrop and polyester padding in between. The two layers are then stitched together. Yet the medium is far from simple. Abad practiced a provocative form of bricolage that art historian Patrick Flores described, without laughing, as the work of a “bricoleur flaneur”.