Khadija Sareshwala

Khadija’s work is inspired from age-old South Asian textile practices. This traditional influence has been incorporated throughout her work and is fused with an amalgamation of modernism, to produce a highly unique product. As we live in an era filled with bursts of distinct artistic culture, she believes her  work is a representation of contemporary meets traditionalism. 

Her decision to paint on fabric using textile came from her  influence/artistic practice stems from her experiences of working with an NGO.  The NGO’s mission was to empower women and to revive the dying arts of South Asia. This focus on helping local artisans and keeping age-old traditions alive inspired her to start a business in which she collaborated with artisans using her design experience paired with their ancient artistic techniques.   

Her  design experience comes from being trained in these traditional textile techniques, which she learned in college and has practiced for several years. 

Khadija treats  textile fabric as though she is  painting on canvas and creates hand painted wearable art, which makes each piece one of a kind.  She uses her specialty as a textile artist to create prints with a free flow of mind.  She wants each of  her  unique pieces to represent tranquility, calmness and beauty to the owner. 

 

Dabu is an ancient mud resist block printing technique from Rajasthan, India.

This art form almost vanished in the last century, now many artists are taking the initiative of reviving this art form.

This is an extremely labour intensive process and involves many stages of printing and dyeing technique.

This process, however, yields extremely artistically beautiful and breathtaking results that might not be possible with another method.

What is Dabu printing?

 The fabric is block printed with dabu, which is a mud resist paste made from clay and gavar gum, and sprinkled with saw dust (so the fabric will not stick to itself), and laid to dry in the sun. The dabu mud makes the printed area resistant to dyes, and therefore will remain unaffected when it is later dyed.

- Once the mud is dry, the fabric is immersed in a dye, usually indigo, and again laid to dry in the sun. The printers may repeat the dabu printing on top of the dyed fabric to create further layers of resist and again dye it in darker shades of the dye.

- Finally the fabric is washed to remove all traces of the dabu mud, and revealing the resist area to be the original white (or other colors depending on how many times the fabric was dabu printed). The fabric is again dried in the sun.

Scan the QR Code and be taken to a video of the process. 

Blossoming Reverie!

I am often so enamored by our surroundings and the beauty of nature specifically. So for this work, I initially did an A4 sized piece that had watercolor, charcoal and a mix of other mediums. They consisted of very abstract, gothic sunflower paintings and from this, the series came about.
I really wanted to marry two of my favorite mediums together, that is, screen print and batik. Screen printing is a technique where mesh is used to transfer the pattern on to the fabric. I scanned my design, made it more linear and separated the screens for color. So essentially the amount of colors in a design, equals the amount of screens required.

I initially did an A4 sized piece that had watercolor, charcoal and a mix of other mediums. They consisted of very abstract, gothic sunflower paintings and from this, the series came about. I really wanted to marry two of my favorite mediums together, that is, screen print and batik.I loved the process, but I wanted to break the monotony that can sometimes creep into the way we do things. So I decided to mesh multiple disciplines together and experiment with the process by free flowing styles to create these textures. The visual halos around the flowers combine to produce a unique screen printing and batik work.


Botanical
Hand blocked botanical on silk
Woodblock printing on textiles is the process of using wooden blocks that are carved with various designs that are dabbed on to textile ink and then stamped on to fabric, usually on linen, cotton or silk. It is one of the earliest and slowest methods of textile printing. Block printing by hand is a slow process, it is however one of the most versatile and creative methods and is capable of creating highly artistic results. Some of which will not be possible without any other method.