Batik and Me

My personal Batik history :


My parents (both of whom are artists) started exploring the technique in the early 70's. They used batik to make extremely detailed Indian Miniature paintings. They did not use the canting, preferring ordinary paint brushes dipped into heated wax.

It became their 'common' work, worked on and signed by both of them. It was also how they managed to make enough of a regular income in order to send me and my sister to school, run the house etc.. They would sell their art in some Hotel boutiques in Delhi(Indian miniatures appealed more to foreigners); and once in about 3 or 4 years they would hold a workshop and exhibition in France.


A small example of my parents' batik.






I was born in '72. So I grew up in this 'batik world'!

My childhood memories are imbibed with the smell of hot melted wax, with fingers stained with dyes, and with sitting very seriously at the work table and experimenting with my own batiks.

A batik I made when I was 6 years old.


Then, I went to boarding school, and later to design school..and to working as an interior designer.. further and further away my 'batik world'.

Now, I live in France; my parents have more or less retired, and no longer hold their workshops and exhibitions in France. But, they left me all their material... and I finally started again in december 2009!