Spike Island presents Pacita Abad: Life in the Margins (2020)

Curated by Robert Leckie, Spike Island Director in collaboration with London-based artist Pio Abad, the exhibition included twenty large-scale ‘trapunto’ paintings and works on fabric made between 1983 and 2002.

Characterised by their vibrant colour and intricate construction, these works combine a broad range of styles, subjects and techniques, from social realist tableaus incorporating indigenous textiles, to richly detailed abstractions inspired by Korean brush painting and Papua New Guinean macramé.

For theVOV Season One, Spike Island focuses on Abad's Immigrant Experience series. Focusing on her depictions of the experiences of immigrants and her engagement with diverse cultural traditions, this work is underpinned by Abad's pluralist approach to image-making across cultures, histories and styles.

All works courtesy the Pacita Abad Art Estate.

Virtual Tour with Artist Pio Abad and Dr Dorothy Price, Art Historian

Join Artist Pio Abad and Art Historian Dr Dorothy Price for a virtual tour of Spike Island's 2020 exhibition Pacita Abad: Life in the Margins.

Pio Abad is an artist living and working in London. In 2018, he co-curated A Million Things to Say, the first survey of Pacita Abad’s work at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila and in 2019 he co-curated Pacita Abad: Life in the Margins at Spike Island, Bristol.

Dr. Dorothy Price is Professor of History of Art at the University of Bristol, editor of Art History the journal of the Association for Art History, UK. She is widely published in the areas of British art and German modernism with a particular focus on women artists.