Jaafar Latiff: In the Time of Textile

Jaafar Latiff is a painter acclaimed for his trailblazing approach in invigorating the batik medium. Succeeding an earlier generation of batik artists, he broadened the scope of painting in this medium beyond the pictorial conventions commonplace until the 1970s by integrating conventional techniques of batik painting with his own expressive and abstract style. In the Time of Textile highlights Jaafar’s advances in batik through his rigorous experiments between the 1970s and 1990s, with a focus on three of his major painting series: Wandering, Batik 87/88, and Self-Portrait. It also traces his adjacent explorations in other mediums, such as acrylic painting and computer art, revealing his bold embrace of the modernist ethos to be in search of the new.