Batik Shirt
Ketaki Roy ChowdhurySantiniketan, India, 1976
- Materials & techniques
- Tussar silk, batik; wax resist and natural sogan dye
- Collection
- Ketaki Roy Chowdhury
Object details
This tussar silk shirt was made by Ketaki Roy Chowdhury in 1976 as a gift for her fiancé.
The surface is patterned throughout with a vocabulary of Javanese batik motifs, adapted to the form and texture of the garment. The repeated forms create a continuous rhythm across the shirt, giving the textile the character of a patterned batik rather than a composition organised around a single central motif.
Roy Chowdhury retained the natural sogan brown of the dye, allowing its warm, earthy tone to work in close relation with the natural golden texture of tussar. The restrained colour and repeated Javanese-inspired pattern give the shirt a distinctive balance of materiality, ornament and wearability, bringing a Javanese textile vocabulary into a personal garment made at Santiniketan.
