
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 3, 1994                   TAG: 9411260001
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TAKE A PLUNGE INTO ART FROM THE DEEP

The visitor won't drown in "Assaulting the Deep Sea," a new exhibit at the Art Museum of Western Virginia. But he may feel as though he's standing at the bottom of the ocean.

Eight vast canvases on three walls create a wrap-around ocean of color - reflecting artist Pacita Abad's love of the brilliant underwater life around coral reefs.

"Take a plunge," she has said of the exhibit. "I hope you enjoy diving."

Abad, who lives in Washington, D.C., nearly drowned in the ocean as a child, explained the museum's chief curator, Mark Scala.

Thus, one of her canvases reflects her childhood fear of the water - in a huge dark canvas packed with groping tentacles, disembodied eyes and gleaming teeth.

The seven other canvases reflect the sea as Abad came to love it.

Her eight huge canvases - the largest, "My Fear of Night Diving," is slightly more than 14 by 11 feet - surround the viewer, as though he were smack in the middle of all the sparkling life. The paintings depict the reefs off Abad's native Philippine Islands, Scala writes in his notes on "Assaulting the Deep Sea."

Abad learned to swim only as an adult. She took three years of lessons at the YMCA, then entered the ocean again on a trip to Thailand.

"After I took my first plunge, the rest was pure obsession," she has said. "It is such a peaceful environment down there that one feels like an infidel intruding into a sacred place."

It is certainly a joyous place, at least in Abad's paintings. After "My Fear of Night Diving," the paintings abound with happier colors and far less threatening scenes. The trapunto, or two-layered canvases, include not only a crayon box of colors but buttons, shells and mirrors.

Abad is now a veteran scuba diver and worldwide traveler.

"A true citizen of the world," Scala wrote, "Abad assaults, with joy and diligence, the borders between fear and wonder that mark both her experience and ours."

"Assaulting the Deep Sea" will be featured on the second floor of the art museum through Dec. 31.

``Assaulting the Deep'' by Pacita Abad: through Dec. 31, Art Museum of Western Virginia, Center in the Square. Opening reception Nov. 16, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Norfolk Southern Foundation Gallery. 342-5760.

by CNB