The Village Where I Came From

Pacita Abad was known for her mural-like paintings, comprising hand-stitched textiles that are painted and adorned with accessories. Born in the Batanes province of the Philippines, Abad came to the United States as a student of law and history before training as a painter at the Corcoran School of Art in the late 1970s. She integrated painted lines and contours of figures with stitches and patches to create her own language of storytelling. In doing so, she placed the trapunto technique of quilting, traditionally associated with craft, in the realm of visual art.

The Village Where I Came From consists of repurposed, collaged sections from Abad’s 1970s oil paintings that depicted everyday scenes witnessed during her travels to Sudan, Guatemala, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and other countries. She also added new scenes and backgrounds to the overall composition, resulting in a vibrant mix of perspectives and scale. Many vignettes center on women nursing, head-carrying, tending livestock, selling or buying provisions, or a combination of several tasks at once. Colorful fabrics and verdant landscapes fill the space, indicating a tropical setting. The title indicates the affinities Abad saw between the architecture and social spaces of other communities and her own experience as a villager, Filipina, woman, and immigrant. This painting thus reflects an internationalism expressed by the artist throughout her life and career.