Pacita Abad debuted her Underwater Wilderness series in 1986 following her newfound love of scuba diving and the natural beauty she found underwater. “You cannot beat nature—[it is] fantastic when it comes to colors and quite unusual when it comes to shape and texture,” the artist wrote in her journal in 1985. To capture the variety of colors and textures, she utilized her famous “trapunto” quilted canvases — after padding and stitching a canvas, Abad then painted and embellished the surface with buttons, sequins, mirrors, thread, and yarn.