The artist residency at Bon Ton Langkawi is a new initiative that commenced in February this year to activate a cultural hub in Bon Ton Langkawi through creative collaborations. The artist residency aims to provide a fresh new space to draw inspiration from Langkawi’s unusual and distinctive natural landscapes. CULT Gallery curates the art residency shows by selecting emerging artists who need space and support to develop their artistic practice. The artists are chosen for their versatility and resourcefulness that will enable them to create site specific installations at Bon Ton and to handle community art workshops. Our first artist in residence is Nia Khalisa, a Malaysian Institute of Art graduate. Nia has a multi- disciplinary artistic practice including textile art using traditional batik techniques. After a number of shows in Kuala Lumpur, Nia spent a year at Institute Seni Indonesia, Solo studying Batik. At the residency, Nia experimented with creating artworks using batik techniques on woven cotton fabric, Chinese calligraphy paper and fish nets. Inspired by her surroundings, Nia will present artworks and installations incorporating natural landscapes and motifs from wood carvings of traditional Malay houses in Bon Ton, plant, animal life and fishermen paraphernalia commonly found in Langkawi. Her self dyed artworks derives from the tree bark of Soga Tingi and Myrobalan extract from a Terminalia Chebula tree, both compatible with wax resist techniques. Nia has also experimented with extracting dye from Ketapang (large, reddish earth coloured leaves), found in abundance around Langkawi. Motifs in this series of artworks are hand drawn by Nia and made into stamping blocks by a Kelantanese
artisan. This Langkawi series offers an immersive experience of the artist’s experimentations with new techniques, organic materials, forms and shapes in the artist’s workspace.
