Process

Kamal is an artist who master the art of traditional batik painting and keep abreast with contemporary art pratice. The split materiality series is a juxtaposition of traditional art making technique touching on recent phenomenon in the art ecosystem.

Batik is a traditional Indonesian textile craft. It is made by drawing dots, lines and patterns using a melted wax with a spouted tool called a tjanting, or by printing the resist with a copper stamp called a tjap. The applied wax on the fabric becomes a resists during the dyeing process. Only the exposed (unwaxed) area absorbs the dye.

Indigo is the oldest dye known to man, Kamal intentionally chose this challenging medium over simpler modern dyes as a symbolic gesture of man's undying need to create and also begs the question on the need for craftsmanship in art.

Cracks are unique to batik painting technique as dyes seep through the wax that is formed accidentally or intentionally during the dying process. Each crack is unique and improssible to reproduce an exact copy. This is a non-fungible trait of batik painting.

Batik paintings can be approached with an extensive array of techniques, style and subject matter ranging from surface designs, figuratives to abstraction. It is not a medium limited to traditional motifs and pastoral sceneries of rural life in South East Asia. Kamal has been pushing the boundaries of batik painting and materiality into the realm of contemparay art practice with installations, and contemporary subject matter.

This series for Split Materiality using age old indigo immersion technique comenting on the current NFT phenomenon is a conceptual art approach.

Kamal Dollah
'Dearly missed', 2021

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