For its first art fair of 2025, Silverlens is pleased to return to S.E.A. Focus with a duo presentation of Filipino diaspora artists Pacita Abad and nephew Pio Abad, marking the first time they are presented together in Singapore.

The presentation features a series of prints Pacita Abad (b.1946, Batanes, Philippines – d. 2004, Singapore) produced during her three-month residency at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI) in 2003. The artist, alongside print and paper-makers at STPI, translated her rich visual language onto paper-based media and processes.

“The results of the STPI collaborative process overwhelmed me, as the prints became extensions of my paintings, with their luminous colours textured with the added glitter, fabric, buttons and mirrors,” Abad shared in the exhibition catalog for Circles in My Mind, a 2004 exhibition of her STPI works at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Pacita Abad’s works are on view in concurrent major museum exhibitions in two continents. Her North American traveling retrospective Pacita Abad is at its last leg at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, previously on view at the Walker Institute, Minneapolis; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), California; and MoMA PS1, New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Manila opened Pacita Abad: Philippine Painter, an exhibition showcasing early works by Pacita in the Philippines, on view until March 2025.

Complementing the presentation are ink on paper drawings by Pacita’s nephew and estate curator, Turner-nominated artist Pio Abad (b.1983, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in London, England) who examines the personal and political entanglements of and within objects. Deeply informed by unfolding events in the Philippines, his work emanates from a personal family chronicle woven into the nation’s story.

Pio Abad’s exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the historic Ashmolean Museum was nominated for the 2024 Turner Prize Award and has been recreated for the Turner Prize Award’s accompanying exhibition at Tate Britain where it is on view until 16 February 2025.

Silverlens’ presentation not only highlights the profound connections between Pacita and Pio Abad’s practices but also emphasizes their shared experiences as migrants, deeply rooted in cultural, political, and historical ties.

Curated by John Tung, S.E.A. Focus will be on view from 17 through 26 January 2025 at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore.

Pacita Abad (b. 1946, Batanes, Philippines - d. 2004, Singapore) is known for her large-scale quilted trapunto paintings characterized by vibrant color and accumulated materials. Marked by vivid colors and intricate materials, her expansive paintings span a broad spectrum of themes, drawn in form and concept from a number of ethnic traditions of craft and thought. From portraying tribal masks and social scenes to intricate underwater landscapes and abstract forms, Abad's work transcended borders.

In 2023, Abad was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at The Walker Art Center, which traveled later to SFMOMA. The exhibition will then travel to MoMA PS1 and Art Gallery Ontario in 2024–2025. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the National Museum, Jakarta, Indonesia; Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong, The Museum of Philippine Art, Manila; Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila; Bhirasri Museum of Modern Art, Bangkok, Thailand; Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore; The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; and the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston, among others. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including: Beyond the Border: Art by Recent Immigrant, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; Asia/ America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art, a traveling exhibition organized by the Asia Society, New York; Olympiad of Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, Korea; 2nd Asian Art Show, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan; and La Bienal de Habana, Havana, Cuba.

Pio Abad (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in London, England) examines the personal and political entanglements of and within objects. Through a wide-ranging practice encompassing drawing, painting, textiles, installation, and text, Abad mines repressed historical events and offers counternarratives to draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies, and people. Deeply informed by unfolding events in the Philippines, his work emanates from a personal family chronicle woven into the nation’s story. His exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was nominated for the 2024 Turner Prize and was exhibited at Tate Britain for the 2024 Turner Prize Exhibition.

Abad’s solo exhibitions include Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila (2022); Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, Kadist, San Francisco (2019); Splendour, Oakville Galleries, Ontario (2019); Notes on Decomposition, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2016); 1975 – 2015, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney and Some Are Smarter Than Others, Gasworks, London (2014). Recent group exhibition include In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Kerala (2022); Is it morning for you yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022); Things Entangling, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2020); Phantom Limb, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019); To Make Wrong/Right/Now, 2nd Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii (2019); Imagined Nations/ Modern Utopias, 12th Gwangju Biennial, Korea (2018). Forthcoming exhibitions include: Small World, 13th Taipei Biennial (2023) and Pio Abad: To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in February 2024. His artworks are held in collections around the world including Tate, UK; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Hawai’i State Art Museum, Honolulu; Singapore Art Museum; Kadist, Paris/San Francisco and Art Jameel, Dubai.

He is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad. He has recently co-curated monographic exhibitions on Pacita Abad at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila and Spike Island, Bristol. He also co-edited the publication Pacita Abad: A Million Things to Say in 2021.