Batik Sari
Ketaki Roy ChowdhuryKala Bhavana, Santiniketan, India, 15 September 1974
- Materials & techniques
- Silk, batik; wax resist and natural dyes in three colours
- Collection
- Ketaki Roy Chowdhury
Object details
This silk sari was made by Ketaki Roy Chowdhury at Kala Bhavana on 15 September 1974, during her period of study there, and was gifted to her elder sister on her wedding.
Executed in batik using wax resist and three natural colours, the sari reflects Roy Chowdhury’s close engagement with the visual environment of Santiniketan.
Its imagery draws from her encounters with clay maquettes and models of Bengal, folk-art forms seen at the Poush Mela, elephants and other figurative forms. These elements are arranged as a lively and personal vocabulary, recalling the objects, performances and popular visual culture she encountered in Santiniketan rather than relying on a fixed ornamental scheme.
The sari is particularly significant for Roy Chowdhury’s attempt to move beyond the established vocabulary of Santiniketan batik associated with Karu Sangha and Kala Bhavana. By this period, batik at Santiniketan had developed a recognisable design language, strongly informed by the vegetal rhythms, figures and compositional principles derived from Ajanta. Roy Chowdhury deliberately sought other sources, turning instead to the folk and material culture immediately around her.
Her approach demonstrates how students at Kala Bhavana could work within an established batik tradition while also questioning and extending its visual vocabulary. The sari brings together the technical discipline of wax-resist batik with forms rooted in Santiniketan’s lived cultural landscape, making it both a record of artistic education and a personal expression of the place and period in which it was made.
