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culture x 15CONTACT US AT: 8351-9409, [email protected]
Tuesday September 12, 2017
HAVE you ever imagined that batik, a traditional dyeing technique using wax to make patterns on fabric, could be applied on paper, porcelain or cowhide?
Liu Zilong, an innovator of modern Chinese batik painting, combines this traditional printing and dyeing tech-nique with modern methods in a series of colorized batik paintings.
“Batik originated from China about 2,000 years ago and it is still widely used in Chinese ethnic minorities’ cloth-ing in Southwest China,” Liu said.
Traditional batik entails drawing dots or lines of wax on cotton and dyeing the cloth with indigo. The areas treated with wax will keep their original colors, while the contrast between the dyed and un-dyed areas will form a striking pattern.
Liu made a breakthrough in the art form by replacing the traditionally-used organic indigo with artifi cial dyes, which served to enhance the vibrancy and lifespan of colors in batik pieces.
Improved techniques like these have innovated the ancient art and make it better suited for modern people’s aesthetic tastes, Liu said. He has also applied the modern batik method to wool, silk, paper, porcelain, cowhide and other non-traditional materials.
Batik painting stands out from other art styles due to the distinct irregular lines that occur within the patterns through cracks in the wax during the dyeing process, an effect that is rarely found in paintings. “This is the soul of batik. No matter how talented the painter is, only by using wax you can create these unique lines.” Further-
more, by splashing dyes on canvas, the colors change beautifully and highlight the gorgeous textures, said Liu.
We met Liu at the Liu Zilong Chinese Batik Studio in Shenzhen Polytechnic. The 76-year-old artist is
productive and energetic. When he feels inspired, he paints from noon through the evening. On the afternoon of our visit, Liu was putting a fi nishing touch on a batik painting. His paint-ings tend to be very large and are made with bright colors. There was a 3-meter long and 1.5-meter wide painting by Liu’s side, which he had fi nished the evening before.
Although Liu has been practicing art since child-hood, he was only an aver-age layman of batik before age 40. “Every child in my village has been my model,” said Liu about his early days as an artist. “But
later nobody wanted to be my model as it cost too much time for me to fi nish a painting.”
In 1970 at 28 years old, Liu created a series of painted T-shirt patterns with crayons and watercolors while work-ing as a pattern designer for exported textiles in Tangshan Knitting Factory. These patterns later served as proto-types for his colorized batik paintings.
In 1981 at 40 years old, Liu was rec-ommended by Tangshan Knitting Fac-tory to study at the Central Academy of Art and Design due to his outstanding performance at work.
It was his teacher Ross Gao, a famous Chinese-American fi ber artist and pro-fessor of the University of Wisconsin who taught as a guest teacher at the Central Academy of Art and Design, that led Liu to batik painting. Gao appreci-ated Liu’s unique sense of color and sug-gested that Liu combine his talent with traditional Chinese folk fi ber art.
Liu believes his take on colorized batik painting to be a one-of-a-kind painting style.
However, colorized batik painting needs the support of the government and the public, he said. Liu feels regret-ful that Chinese batik lacks competitive-ness on the world stage. “Indonesia is currently the best in the world in terms of quality and design,” he said.
He appeals to young people to con-sider pursuing colorized batik painting as their occupation.
Now, a team of students is learning colorized batik painting at the Liu Zilong Chinese Batik Studio. The students also established a student batik association to advocate and develop the historical art form. Liu also suggests holding more colorized batik painting exhibitions in Shenzhen to better popularize it.
Artist revitalizes traditional Chinese batik
A batik painting by Liu Zilong. File photo
Aritis Liu Zilong.
ON Sept. 1, Shenzhen Daily selected three readers to try their hand at traditional batik and modern batik painting at the Liu Zilong Chinese Batik Studio in Shenzhen Polytech-nic, which was opened by artist Liu Zilong and the college.
Batik is a traditional dyeing technique that involves using wax to make patterns on fabric.
“We established this studio in 2012.” said Hao Yali, a teacher at the Visual Communi-cation School of Shenzhen Polytechnic who is also teaching at the studio.
“The dean of the School of Art and Design, Zhou Liuqun, and teacher Liu Zilong, built this studio to provide resources for China’s art and design education. The main purpose is to pass down and develop Chinese batik art.”
Hao is well-known among traditional artists as an international commercial art designer and a member of the Batik Guild, a U.K.-based organization for batik artists, students and teachers.
In educating the readers, Hao fi rst showed them an art piece in which she used three traditional batik painting techniques in one painting.
Next, Hao demonstrated the batik process. She drew patterns on a white cloth depicting fl owers and later traced them using hot wax with a pen-like wax spatula. The cloth was then put into a vat of indigo.
After the cloth dried, the wax was removed using boiling water. Beautiful stylistic pat-terns were left on the cloth.
Finally, Hao introduced the technique of modern batik painting. Like before, she drew patterns on a white cloth and then traced them using hot wax. The cloth was then rubbed, which caused the wax surface to form cracks. During the dyeing process, the dye penetrated into the white cloth through these cracks, creating patterns of irregular colors and forming a unique, artistic effect.
“Teacher Liu chose Shenzhen Polytechnic to build this platform, as our school focuses on students’ practices. Like what we’ve expe-rienced today, you cannot learn batik paint-ing only by knowing theoretical knowledge, you have to paint,” said Hao Yali.
Shenzhen Polytechnic has held workshops to introduce this unique art form. “Teachers from Shandong University of Art & Design and Shenzhen University have opened classes about batik after attending our workshops, which is a good way to promote batik,” said Hao.
Many students have applied what they learned about modern batik painting into their designs, said Hao. For example, they have combined batik painting with cloth-ing and jewelry, and batik art is refl ected in graphic design, such as posters and packag-ing designs.
At a modern batik painting exhibition held in 2014, many works by Shenzhen Polytechnic’s teachers and students were on display. Many students won awards at the exhibition.
“There are numerous students doing work related to art. Some students are art teach-ers. They teach batik art in their classes and help to spread the art. Such knowledge, like seeds, will lay the foundation of the develop-ment of batik art,” said Hao.
traditional batikshows new glitz and glamour
Bani Sharma from India tries her hand at batik painting at the Liu Zilong Chinese Batik Studio on Sept. 1. Photos by Liu Xudong
Hao Yali (L) and Andrea Lisette Rodriguez from Mexico pose with a batik painting created by Rodriguez.