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“Loyang Batik”

Batik is both an art and a craft owning worldwide popularity. Besides clothing the human body, its uses also include furnishing fabrics, heavy canvas wall hangings, tablecloths and household accessories. Loyang Batik is inspired by Kuih Loyang, a popular snack during Gawai Dayak Celebration which is an annual festival celebrated by the Dayak community in Sarawak, Malaysia and West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Made of flour, eggs, oil and sugar its form resembles a flower, of which some identify as Kuih Rose.

Kuih Loyang is crispy in texture and very brittle. Its geometry consist of irregular circular voids in different scales, centered on a middle anchor. The pattern design process began with a realistic drawing of Kuih Loyang served on bamboo plate because it is part of Gawai Dayak Festival tradition. The drawing is then analysed and converted into an abstract composition of lines and shapes. This composition is later interpreted in an art movement/style of my choice - Cubism.

I choose middle part of Kuih Loyang because more complex more interesting final out come will be. Complex part also will have higher potential to manipulate and make it more interesting. I also take some part from bamboo plate for the pattern to insert Gawai tradition. That is the reason why you can see many round part in my pattern and lines to connect every parts. In my pattern I applied linear organization where I organized it in horizontal and vertical conditions. My pattern used mirroring technique at every element to make it repeated until the pattern done. I also use symmetry principle to make it balance and harmony.

Before finalized the pattern, I have simplified the shape from complex lines and turns out to new shape. Colour scheme of my pattern I took inspired from Pablo Picasso because my art movement of Kuih Loyang is cubism. I chose dark brown, yellow mustard and pale peach for my pattern. I used pale peach to create the based ,yellow mustard and dark brown for the elements because I want the elements pop out and more attractive. Other than that, I want the colour suits my subject matter which is Kuih Loyang.

In this modern world, Batik will be one of traditional elements that will introduce traditional heritage to younger generation. We cannot let the traditional heritage be forgotten in the future. One of the ways to prevent this from happening is make it trending all the time such as create new fashion of batik so the younger generation will continuously apply Batik in fashion especially for special occasion. From this pattern also I want to show that it is not easy to create new pattern and how we have to appreciate every art and pattern created. I also hope that new generation will keep the heritage as a pride to show representative of our tradition.