Pacita Abad: Door to Life
30 April - 20 June 2026
  • 'The trip to Yemen was a dream...every day a new idea, every day a new door' – Pacita Abad, Foreword...

    Pacita Abad with works from the Door to Life series.

    © Pacita Abad Art Estate

    "The trip to Yemen was a dream...every day a new idea, every day a new door"

    – Pacita Abad, Foreword to "Door to Life," 1999

  • Tina Kim Gallery is pleased to present Door to Life, its third solo exhibition of works by the visionary artist Pacita Abad (1946–2004) which highlights a series of works the artist made after a trip to Yemen in the spring of 1998. For years after, Abad created artworks across scale and media that drew tremendous inspiration from the architecture and decorative arts across the country. Including the debut of the artist’s never-before-seen qamariya paintings — references to the traditional stained glass windows of Sanaa — the exhibition will bring together the multiple bodies of work that comprise the holistic Door to Life series for the first time.

  • Abad was a pioneering artist known for her rigorous political engagement and radical embrace of global arts and crafts practices, which she encountered throughout decades of extensive travel. Born to a politically-active family in Batanes, the northernmost province of the Philippines, Abad came to the United States in 1970 where she studied at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco before embarking on her decades of nomadic travel to 62 countries across Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Africa. Although she took courses at The Art Students League and the Corcoran School of Art, Abad stated, “Traveling for me is my art school.” Abad’s practice was distinctly porous, accumulating layersof material, technical, and formal influences throughout her 32-year-long career. Her practice was profoundly influenced by the artisans, seamstresses, craftspeople, journalists, and everyday people she met across her travels. Abad considered her practice to be global rather than defined by any single artistic style or national identity.

  • The artist visited Yemen during a critical and politically charged moment in the country’s history in the years following the...
    Yemen trip, May 1998. © Pacita Abad Art Estate

    The artist visited Yemen during a critical and politically charged moment in the country’s history in the years following the 1994 civil war, and her work urgently engaged with a culture that was navigating significant flux and upheaval. The series is emblematic of Abad’s deep belief in the value of the cultural products and practices of places undergoing political or economic instability. Rather than positioning herself within a nameable lineage of artistic influences who moved in conventional gallery spaces, Abad instead favored the inheritance of historically anonymous workers in craft, textiles, and the decorative arts, from locations outside of established Western institutional and market infrastructure.

  • Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).

    Reference images of doors in Yemen by Pacita Abad. © Pacita Abad Art Estate

  • Of particular interest to Abad during her time in Yemen were portals—intricately painted doors and delicately crafted stained glass windows—which she encountered in cities and villages such as Sanaa, Manakha, and Al Mahwit. The artist was drawn to the decorative doors especially, painted in strong, loud, pure colors, softened by the sun and sand and designed 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 the country’s 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.

  • The exhibition includes a number of Abad’s intimately-scaled square Door to Life paintings, as well as larger paintings, which the...

    The exhibition includes a number of Abad’s intimately-scaled square Door to Life paintings, as well as larger paintings, which the artist made in her signature trapunto style. Significant works from Abad’s Door Made of Straw series—which were previously exhibited at the 13th Gwangju Biennale: Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning in Gwangju, Korea (2021) —will make their North American debut. 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.

  • On view for the first time since their creation will be nine paintings which reference the traditional stained glass windows... On view for the first time since their creation will be nine paintings which reference the traditional stained glass windows...

    On view for the first time since their creation will be nine paintings which reference the traditional stained glass windows of Sanaa, called qamariya (meaning “moon-like” or “of the moon” in Arabic). These double-sided works are painted onto reappropriated stencils that Abad collected from qamariya workshops in Sanaa. Her vibrant brushwork in the negative space forms a complement to the stained glass windows the stencils helped to produce, as well as an extended collaboration between the artist and the craftspeople who shared their materials with her. For Abad, the painting of the everyday doors and windows of Yemen, was her pathway to show the outside world a vibrantly colorful perspective of the rich cultural heritage of Yemen. As the late scholar James T. Bennett noted in his 1999 essay, “[Abad’s] explorations in Door To Life are not in the manner of the tourist’s fading snapshots but a series of striking statements which articulate the language of the heart.”

  • About the Artist

    About the Artist

    The internationally recognized Philippine-American painter Pacita Abad (1946-2004) had a prolific 32-year career, creating an extensive range of artworks while working on six continents. Since her early passing in Singapore in 2004, Abad’s work has received increased international recognition and was the subject of a major traveling retrospective, which debuted at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis in 2023, before traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New York’s MoMA PS1, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. From 2027 to 2029, Abad’s work will be featured in an important traveling exhibition to three prominent European museums. Abad has had institutional solo exhibitions at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (2025); the Metropolitan Museum of Manila (2024); Jameel Arts Center, Dubai (2021); Spike Island, Bristol (2020); and the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila (2018). Abad’s paintings have also been presented in notable international exhibitions globally, including the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2026, Saudi Arabia; the 60th La Biennale di Venezia in 2024; Kunsthaus Zurich, 2024; the 58th Carnegie International in 2022, Pittsburgh; Barbican Art Gallery, London in 2024; Haus der Kunst, Munich in 2024; the 13th Gwangju Biennial in 2021; Kathmandu Triennale 2077 in 2022; and the 11th Berlin Biennial in 2020.

     

    More than 60 of Abad’s paintings are now housed within museum collections in 18 countries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Dallas Art Museum; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; Instituto Inhotim, Brazil; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Jameel Art Center, Dubai; M Plus Museum, Hong Kong; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea; National Gallery Singapore; the Metropolitan Museum of Manila; the National Museum of the Philippines; and Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta.

  • Featured Works
    • Pacita Abad (1946–2004) Door made of straw I, 1998 Oil, acrylic, printed cloth, dyed canvas stitched on straw mat 89 x 53 1/8 in 226 x 135 cm
      Pacita Abad (1946–2004)
      Door made of straw I, 1998
      Oil, acrylic, printed cloth, dyed canvas stitched on straw mat
      89 x 53 1/8 in
      226 x 135 cm
      Inquire
    • Pacita Abad (1946–2004) Door made of straw III, 1998 Oil, acrylic, painted and dyed canvas, painted cloth stitched on straw mat 85 x 56 1/4 in 215.9 x 142.9 cm
      Pacita Abad (1946–2004)
      Door made of straw III, 1998
      Oil, acrylic, painted and dyed canvas, painted cloth stitched on straw mat
      85 x 56 1/4 in
      215.9 x 142.9 cm
      Inquire
    • Pacita Abad (1946–2004) I Am By The Door in a Second, 1999 Oil, painted cotton collaged and stitched on canvas 61 1/2 x 38 1/8 in 156.2 x 96.8 cm
      Pacita Abad (1946–2004)
      I Am By The Door in a Second, 1999
      Oil, painted cotton collaged and stitched on canvas
      61 1/2 x 38 1/8 in
      156.2 x 96.8 cm
      Inquire
    • Pacita Abad (1946–2004) Black and White Stones in old Sanaa Large III, 1999 Oil on canvas 42 x 24 x 2 1/2 in 106.7 x 61 x 6.3 cm
      Pacita Abad (1946–2004)
      Black and White Stones in old Sanaa Large III, 1999
      Oil on canvas
      42 x 24 x 2 1/2 in
      106.7 x 61 x 6.3 cm
      Inquire
    • Pacita Abad (1946–2004) Qamariya 43, 2000 Oil on paper 18 3/4 x 17 3/4 x 1 in 47.6 x 45.1 x 2.5 cm
      Pacita Abad (1946–2004)
      Qamariya 43, 2000
      Oil on paper
      18 3/4 x 17 3/4 x 1 in
      47.6 x 45.1 x 2.5 cm
      Inquire
    • Pacita Abad (1946–2004) Qamariya 56, 2000 Oil on paper 15 7/8 x 14 5/8 x 1 in 40.3 x 37.1 x 2.5 cm
      Pacita Abad (1946–2004)
      Qamariya 56, 2000
      Oil on paper
      15 7/8 x 14 5/8 x 1 in
      40.3 x 37.1 x 2.5 cm
      Inquire
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