Raw Silk Lawon

This graphic and minimalist Indonesian silk ceremonial shawl, is mounted as a textile art wall hanging and backed onto a black canvas. Lawon textiles became popular in the West during the modernist art movement due to their resemblance to the paintings of Mark Rothko. This particular lawon features an olive green center which has been set off from the deep raspberry red by a thin cream colored border. The fine silk has been resist dyed with all natural vegetable dyes using the tritik method which  literally mean “stitch”. This is a process in which a strong fiber is used to stitch and gather the fabric tightly together to create the resist before dyeing the fabric. The stitch marks are still visible along the border separating the central and main field, adding another layer of texture to the fabric.