Pacita Abad's "Underwater Wilderness" series brings the viewer into a world that only scuba divers know, and this is because the artist was also a scuba diver, but that is only part of the story. In fact, although Pacita was raised on the small island of Batanes, she didn't know how to swim. What made matters worse was that she had a phobia about the ocean ever since she was seven years old, when her elder brother trying to teach her how to swim by forcing her out of the boat into the ocean. She panicked and almost drowned. It was only years later when she was living in Washington that she gained the confidence to learn how to swim at the YMCA.This later allowed Pacita to learn how to scuba dive when she lived in Bangkok. Read More
After Pacita's first plunge underwater, the rest was pure obsession and she fell in love with scuba diving. She was mesmerized by the fluorescent colors, bright corals and the schools of fish in a variety of sizes. She felt she was in fantasy land and that everything was magical below the ocean's surface. Pacita also felt the solitude underwater and said, "It is such a peaceful environment down there that one feels like an infidel intruding into a sacred place. Every time I dive, I feel like saying excuse me, here I come again."
Because of her rhapsody underwater, Pacita was excited to paint this series to portray the variety of places in the Philippines where she went diving.Thus her titles include names like: "Puerto Galera", "Sepoc wall", "The far side of Apo Reef" and "Ligpo island". The 28 vibrant pieces are painted with oil and acrylic, and most are stuffed with cotton and then stitched to emphasize certain painted forms and then embellished with mirrors, beads, buttons, painted fabric and other material. In a certain way, the sewn, uneven surfaces of Pacita's trapunto paintings look like the rippling of the sea. Many of the paintings show sections of coral, sun saturated sea and schools of brightly hued tropical fish weaving their way underwater. However, one of the paintings entitled, "My fear of night diving" reflects Pacita's darkest imaginings of the deep sea's horrors - a big, razor-toothed blue shark, a giant octopus surrounded by a stonefish, viper fish and a moray eel, revealing the ever present possibility of danger lurking among all the beauty.
Adapted from Pacita's Artist Statement and the catalogue of Assaulting the Deep Sea by Mark Scala. Close
Anilao at its best
Dancing fish
Dumaguete's underwater garden
Golden fish
Hundred islands
Jungle under the sea
Ligpo island
My fear of night diving
Puerto Galera
Puerto Galera II
Puerto Galera IV
Pulang Buli off Batangas
Lion fish: Master of camouflage
Sepoc wall
Shallow gardens of Apo Reef
Sombrero island
The far side of Apo island
Underwater paradise
