This Artist Won A UNESCO Award For Her Handpainted Textiles

Santiniketan in West Bengal is well known as a hub of textiles and crafts. From the craft of dokra to exquisite kaantha work, people come here to witness the wide variety of handmade products. The town where revered poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore laid the foundation of Visva Bharati over a century ago earned its rightful place on the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage list this month.

Bengal-based textile artist Silpinwita Das grew up in Santiniketan amid an environment she describes as "red soil and meadows of lush green paddy fields, where rows of chhatim trees and palms charmed me from the beginning." Das received the UNESCO-WCC Award of Excellence in 2016 for handpainted textiles using natural colours and fabrics. Her vibrantly coloured and one-of-a-kind textiles and paintings are made of sustainable materials and borrow from the textile tradition of Kalamkari. Her product line runs under the label ‘Haridra’, which in Sanskrit means yellow, a colour that is commonly associated with warmth and spirituality. The product line is established to create wearable textile art that will fulfill aesthetic needs besides serving its functional purposes while retaining the flavours of Indian soil. The products include scarves, stoles, sarees, and dresses.

Since childhood, Das loved to draw. "And I finally ended up in an art institution, no wonder! But I have always thrived for something different. The colours, which do not come in a ready-to-use tube form, which you have to prepare by yourself, are the distinctive qualities of natural dyes that have always fascinated me. It's like facing and dealing with your problems to carve your niche." She was also experimenting with natural dyes in several print-making mediums. After finishing her post-graduation in Fine Arts from Visva-Bharati University, she started working with natural dyes on textiles in a more diversified manner.

Derived From Nature

The fabrics she uses are handwoven in the looms of Bengal with hand-spun cotton and Ahimsa (peace) silks. Myrobalan provides its base colour - yellow, which also drives the naming of the brand. A fermented iron and molasses solution provides black, madder provides red, indigo provides blue, and catechu offers brown. The fabric evolves through many laborious and painstaking efforts to get the lustrous effect.

Inspired by natural motifs, textures, and geometrical forms, Haridra products are elaborately hand-painted and hand-dyed with natural colours, making each unique and distinct. "We follow the traditional Kalamkari technique of painting on fabrics," says Das. "But, instead of bamboo kalam, which is primarily used for fine and continuous lines, we use a brush." Das simultaneously works on her artwork and for her clothing label, Haridra. "I entirely do the art pieces by myself," she says. "In comparison, the production process of my wearable collections is time-consuming and labour-intensive. So, we have a few people working with us; most of them are women, and they mostly come from underprivileged families and do not necessarily have the required skills to do the work. We provide the necessary guidance and instructions at every stage to ensure the most important thing, the quality of our products."

Das is the daughter of renowned textile artist Ajit Kumar Das, who she credits as her first inspiration. "Since childhood, I have closely seen my father painting Kalamkari artworks with natural dyes, which influenced me to follow in his footsteps," she says. "He is quite an inspirational figure and learning the art of natural dyes from him is a privilege."

Acclaim For Her Work

Her works have been widely appreciated in India and abroad.

She has visited Santa Fe, New Mexico, to participate in the International Folk Art Market 2019. "It was memorable for me because it was my first solo travel abroad. I met many artists, craftspeople, and art enthusiasts from the world's remotest parts. Everybody was positive and helpful."

This year, her painting, Three Brothers (139.5 × 230.7 cm), was displayed in The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, US. It was part of an installation of contemporary Indian textiles that is a companion to "Woven Wonders" an exhibition of historic Indian textiles from the Parpia Collection. The audience loved it, and the painting is now a part of the same museum collection.

Sustainable Fashion

"I have always tried to create contemporary art and designs, which in my opinion, can only be possible through a perfect combination of tradition and innovation," Das says. "It is a mystical and sustainable world with many stories to explore. It is all about finding my roots and identity, exploring a greater dimension to carry forward the art and knowledge bank of natural dyes."