GEORGE TOWN, March 19 ― Towel art ― quite simply, the art of folding towels into animal shapes ― is usually practised in hotels where these towel animals are placed in rooms to welcome guests.
“The lockdown gave me time to explore, plan out my sculptures and I chose animals with distinct shapes so that they were recognisable,” she said.Maung completed 12 oil paintings and 13 pencil with white ink illustrations of the batik sculptures in various poses throughout the multiple lockdowns between 2020 and 2021.
According to Maung, the title of the exhibition ― Orikata ― comes from a combination of origami and “kata”, which means “a way of doing things” in Japanese or “to speak” in Malay.She replicated towel art using batik but due to the difference in material, she had to cut, sew and construct the material to form the animal shapes she chose.
A unicorn, sculpted using a piece of blue batik, sported a string of pearls and was aptly titled “Pearl of the Orient”, almost like an ode to the artist's home state, Penang.