Of particular interest to Abad during her time in Yemen were the intricately painted doors she encountered in cities and villages such as Sanaa, Manakha, and Al Mahwit. The artist was drawn to these decorative doors, painted in strong, loud, pure colors, softened by the sun and sand and adorned with colorful symbols, hearts, flowers, and Islamic verses. She also appreciated the striking parallels between Yemen’s earthen and stone architecture and the traditional stone houses of her native Batanes. Traveling through the country with sketchbooks and a camera in hand, Abad captured its striking architecture, focusing on the designs and colors of the doors and windows that most captivated her attention. Upon returning to her studio in Jakarta, these sketches and photographs inspired the creation of the vibrant Door to Life series.

This work specifically comes from her Door Made of Straw series—previously exhibited at the 13th Gwangju Biennale: Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning in Gwangju, Korea (2021) and being exhibited in North America for the first time. In these works Abad rejects the traditional surfaces of canvas or paper, instead choosing to paint onto woven straw mats like those she saw woven by Yemeni women in Hodeidah. She then layered and stitched her artwork with patterned batik and ikat textiles, sourced in Indonesia. The weave of the mats provides a structured grid that echoes the architectural forms in the paintings, but the geometries of the work retain a fluidity and tactility indebted to their hand-crafted nature and their roots in practices that precede twentieth-century aesthetic movements.