13th Gwangju Biennale: Curated by Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala. Ten of Pacita's large abstract paintings from her 'Door to Life' and 'Abstract Emotions' series in Gallery 2

The 13th Gwangju Biennale, Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, opens on 1 April 2021 with 69 participating artists and 40 new commissions, in Gwangju, South Korea. The exhibition will last until 9 May 2021 and is held at the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, Gwangju National Museum, and Gwangju Theater, Yangnim mountain - Horanggasy Artpolygon.

Ten of Pacita's large abstract paintings from her 'Door to Life' and 'Abstract Emotions' series, painted during the 1990s, are part of the Biennale (Gallery 2). They are stitched and embellished extensively with various traditional, ethnic fabric that she collected from her global travels.

It includes her '100 years of freedom: Batanes to Jolo'.  In 1998 while living in Jakarta, Pacita was invited to join an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila to celebrate the Philippine Centennial. She was in the midst of creating her textile collages and decided to create an installation which she called '100 Years of Freedom: Batanes (the Philippine's northernmost island where she was born) to Jolo (the southernmost island closest to Malaysia and Indonesia)'.

Pacita decided to create an assemblage, which was  stitched and painted on a 12.5 feet high and 12.5 feet wide Muslim wedding tent, which she brought from Zamboanga. On this base she collaged and stitched pieces of textiles from all parts of the Philippines that she had been collecting for more than 20 years: handwoven cloth from Baguio and Bontoc; ikat from villages in Kalinga Apayao; t'nalak from Lake Seibu, tubao scarves and malongs from Mindanao; my grandmother's lace mantilla from Cebu; crocheted curtains  made by her mother in Batanes; panuelos of her father; and many other pieces of Philippine fabric.

WATCH VIDEO WALKTHROUGH HERE

READ ABOUT PACITA'S TEXTILE COLLAGES HERE