Pacita Abad
Faces, 1983
Oil, plastic buttons, and rick rack on stitched and padded canvas
Dimensions:
79 1/2 x 57 3/4 inches
201.9 x 146.7 cm
79 1/2 x 57 3/4 inches
201.9 x 146.7 cm
FACES An early trapunto work by Pacita Abad, one of the first Filipino masks, Faces (1983) is a rare collecting opportunity - in 1983, Pacita was still fine tuning her...
FACES
An early trapunto work by Pacita Abad, one of the first Filipino masks, Faces (1983) is a rare collecting opportunity - in 1983, Pacita was still fine tuning her trapunto compositional technique, performing material experiments. The work sports a vibrant array of Pacita’s characteristic color, reminiscent of the colors and patterns of traditional Philippine textiles and dyes, a nod to the rich colors traditional across the archipelago.
In terms of iconography, the central face in Faces is reminiscent of mask traditions in the Philippines, particularly masks from the Ifugao or Igorot people (from the high mountains of the island of Luzon) that depict the Bakunawa, a dragon in pre-colonial Filipino mythology, that oftentimes sports an elongated forehead from which a smaller bird or demon sprouts. It plays a prominent role in many ethnic creation myths across the Philippines, emerging from the sea to eat the sun and create solar eclipses.
Such masks are occasionally utilized in animist festivals that continue to this day, synthesizing colonial Catholic religious holidays with the deities of ethnic groups across the Philippines. A notable example is Ati-Atihan, a festival in Kalibo on the island of Aklan, for which Abad named another work in her Phillipine mask series, as well as Moriones, celebrated on Marinduque, another island in the Philippines.
With this context in mind, Abad’s choice of depicting this god-form as an anthropomorphized is a nod to her belief in the lived continuity of non-Western traditions into the present - she is pointing to the vital spirit of Filipinos, even in her earliest experimental works with the Trapunto form.
Notably, the work also represents an early example of the spiral motifs on the cheeks of the mask, that she later took to seminal works such as the European Mask collected by the Tate.
MASKS SERIES
In her Masks series, Abad used the visual traditions of diverse cultures in order to paint portraits of individuals she encountered during her travels. Layering the encounter with different individuals, localities, and experiences in a form of cultural amalgamation, her series ask complex questions about the mutability of representation and tradition in modernity. Abad produced Masks from the early 80's onward, continuing the series across the many localities in which she took up residence. Of the localities represented, the African and Papau New Guinea-focused Masks works are among the most numerous, with several other individual compositions that speak to fictional, or generalized conditions of the "Mask." The series reflects a transnational array of places, offering a unique model for portraiture more in relation to the idea of "translation" than the appropriative methods adopted by European modernists in their work with non-Western traditions.
An early trapunto work by Pacita Abad, one of the first Filipino masks, Faces (1983) is a rare collecting opportunity - in 1983, Pacita was still fine tuning her trapunto compositional technique, performing material experiments. The work sports a vibrant array of Pacita’s characteristic color, reminiscent of the colors and patterns of traditional Philippine textiles and dyes, a nod to the rich colors traditional across the archipelago.
In terms of iconography, the central face in Faces is reminiscent of mask traditions in the Philippines, particularly masks from the Ifugao or Igorot people (from the high mountains of the island of Luzon) that depict the Bakunawa, a dragon in pre-colonial Filipino mythology, that oftentimes sports an elongated forehead from which a smaller bird or demon sprouts. It plays a prominent role in many ethnic creation myths across the Philippines, emerging from the sea to eat the sun and create solar eclipses.
Such masks are occasionally utilized in animist festivals that continue to this day, synthesizing colonial Catholic religious holidays with the deities of ethnic groups across the Philippines. A notable example is Ati-Atihan, a festival in Kalibo on the island of Aklan, for which Abad named another work in her Phillipine mask series, as well as Moriones, celebrated on Marinduque, another island in the Philippines.
With this context in mind, Abad’s choice of depicting this god-form as an anthropomorphized is a nod to her belief in the lived continuity of non-Western traditions into the present - she is pointing to the vital spirit of Filipinos, even in her earliest experimental works with the Trapunto form.
Notably, the work also represents an early example of the spiral motifs on the cheeks of the mask, that she later took to seminal works such as the European Mask collected by the Tate.
MASKS SERIES
In her Masks series, Abad used the visual traditions of diverse cultures in order to paint portraits of individuals she encountered during her travels. Layering the encounter with different individuals, localities, and experiences in a form of cultural amalgamation, her series ask complex questions about the mutability of representation and tradition in modernity. Abad produced Masks from the early 80's onward, continuing the series across the many localities in which she took up residence. Of the localities represented, the African and Papau New Guinea-focused Masks works are among the most numerous, with several other individual compositions that speak to fictional, or generalized conditions of the "Mask." The series reflects a transnational array of places, offering a unique model for portraiture more in relation to the idea of "translation" than the appropriative methods adopted by European modernists in their work with non-Western traditions.
