More than 30 hand-blocked batik pieces newly designed by Raja Permaisuri Agong Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah will be put on display during National Craft Day 2022 at the Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex from Feb 23 to March 7. These batik pieces are hand-blocked and dyed on, among others, crepe, silk and linen.
This will be Tunku Azizah's second solo batik exhibition for the National Craft Day, after the Batik Beragi Pahang Exhibition in 2020.
Last year, her "Che Minah Sayang" hand-blocked batik pieces were exhibited at the Malaysian Batik Fashion Show organised by Yayasan Budi Penyayang and the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry.
The National Craft Institute (IKN) is where these masterpieces are done.
"This is my playground," Tunku Azizah told the Galeri Prima team that was granted an audience with her at the institute last week.
She was putting the final touches to the last four pieces of the batik paintings.
"I've been coming here over the past few years, working on these pieces throughout the Covid-19 pandemic period. It has been therapeutic," she said.
She worked on four pieces at a time, on a rotation basis.
"I start on one piece first and while waiting for the colour to dry, I will work on the second piece and move on to the other pieces. So no time is wasted."
Each piece measures 4.5m and is done in a pair, one which can be turned into menswear while the other can be turned into a female attire.
Tunku Azizah's love for batik started way before she became the Raja Permaisuri Agong.
"I used to go to Cherating to draw batik. I had also signed up for a four-day masterclass in batik painting in London. I was there accompanying my children who were sitting their examinations. I didn't have much to do, so I went for it."
While she had learnt the various techniques to batik painting, Tunku Azizah is certainly not the "by the book" batik designer.
"I call it accidental batik," she described her work. "If you ask me to repeat a design and the colour, I would not be able to do it," she added, thus making each piece an exclusive item. She signed off these pieces with her nickname "Zizzi".
After the blocks are printed on the fabric, Tunku Azizah will painstakingly layer the colours one after the other until she is satisfied with the outcome. She disapproves of any help to finish the piece. Each and every piece is done by her.
"When we layer the colour, only we would know the pressure applied when the brush touches the fabric. This has to be done continuously throughout the piece. You will be able to see inconsistency in the finished product if too many hands do it."
Not a drop of the dye is wasted as she will reuse it until there is none left.
Block-printed batik is one of the oldest traditional batik-making techniques in Malaysia. In the early days, artists used wooden blocks carved with patterns as a mould. Later, in the 1960s, the artisans started to use copper and zinc to make batik blocks.
This differentiates the Malaysian batik from the Indonesian one, which is Tjanting or "batik tulis", where a pen-like tool is used to apply liquid hot wax in the batik-making process there.
"This (block printing) is our (Malaysian) batik. We should continue to champion this and keep this batik-making process alive," said Tunku Azizah, who is the World Crafts Council's 2019 Craft Icon of the Year.
Tunku Azizah has a personal collection of her wooden blocks, which are kept at IKN.
She said batik could only be called such if it had gone through the proper process, including boiling it in hot water to remove the wax (used to stamp the blocks onto the fabric) and "fixing" the colours on the batik using sodium silicate, or batik fixer. This is to ensure that the colours do not run or fade easily.
"If not, they are just prints."
While Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah prefers to wear shirts made of Tenun Pahang Diraja, Tunku Azizah said her sons wore batik shirts made of the pieces she had done before.
"Their cousins asked them where they got their batik shirts from. My sons tell them 'my mother made them'. It makes me so proud."
The Raja Permaisuri Agong may take some of these batik pieces for display at the London Craft Week this May, where she will showcase Tenun Pahang Diraja. This will be the first time that Tenun Pahang Diraja and batik will be exhibited at the event.