Lawon

The art of resist dyeing was imported to Southeast Asia from the Indian subcontinent and became popular mostly in Islamic regions. Muslim textile artists from Palembang in coastal Sumatra along the maritime trade routes developed two methods of resist dyeing. The pelangi with resist binding wrapped around small pockets of cloth and the tritik when the resist lines are formed by tightly gathered stitching. Lawons are made in the tritik method with extreme precision to form rectangles when stitching is taken out. Scholars do not know a lot about their function except that they were dowry offerings and used in house raising ceremonies. Their contemporary appeal is no doubt due to the similarities between them and the minimal paintings of Mark Rothko.