Freedom From Illusion is an example of Pacita Abad’s abstract fabric works, made from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s. These colorful and heavily patterned paintings take inspiration from traditional textiles the artist collected from her travels throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Abad’s adoption of these traditions arose not only from an admiration of their craftsmanship and beauty, but also a sense of political solidarity with cultures that had endured colonial histories. Padded and stitched in Abad’s “trapunto” quilt style, Freedom From Illusion eschews traditional wood frames and other Western painting conventions.

ASIAN ABSTRACTIONS SERIES
Training in oriental brush painting during a trip to Korea in 1983, Abad spent the next few years spinning the traditional emphasis on line into a complex, colorful vocabulary. Repurposing the training sheets she produced during her lessons, rich with dark lines, Abad reworked these forms with colors, painted them, then copied the patterns to canvas on her return to her studio. Asian Abstractions speaks to Abad's prophetic ability to demonstrate the mutability of tradition, as well as her interest in inter-Asia solidarity and cultural dialogue.