Tina Kim Gallery is pleased to announce its first major solo exhibition of Pacita Abad. The works on view will offer a spotlight on the various abstraction series she has created throughout her career, ranging from 1985 to 2002. Including paintings from important private collections as well as from the Art Estate of Pacita Abad, this solo presentation will be one of the first in New York City devoted to Abad in over twenty years, happening concurrently with a major traveling retrospective on view at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, slated to travel to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and P.S. 1 in New York.

Pacita Abad (1946-2004) was a Filipina-American visual artist whose pioneering work in textiles was characterized by her use of vibrant colors and found materials. Abad is best known for her trapunto technique, a celebrated textile-painting form that borrows from the Italian phrase “to quilt.” Instead of stretching the canvas over a wood frame, Abad stitched and stuffed her painted canvases to create a dimensional object that could be rolled up for transport or storage. Abad lived and traveled to a bewildering number of countries during her lifetime—it is this itineracy that defined and shaped her diverse subject matter, from tribal masks and social realist tableaus, to immigrant experiences and abstract expressions of emotion. Pacita Abad’s work brings together images and experiences across cultures, economies, and histories, offering a reflection on globalization and transnationalism from the underrepresented perspective of a woman and person of color.The artist’s works are in the permanent collections of Tate, UK; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Walker Art Center, and the National Gallery of Singapore, among many others.

Please join us for an opening reception on Thursday, May 18th from 6-8 PM.

RSVP is not required