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Sugito: Going global with decorative batik art
(JP/Simon Sudarman)After a brief stint as a painter at Jaya Ancol Dreamland, Jakarta, in 1980, Sugito, has -since 1982- established himself as a decorative batik businessman through his bold departure from the conventional approach of batik painting for clothing to the creation of new designs for interior decoration
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(JP/Simon Sudarman) (JP/Simon Sudarman)
(JP/Simon Sudarman)
After a brief stint as a painter at Jaya Ancol Dreamland, Jakarta, in 1980, Sugito, has -since 1982- established himself as a decorative batik businessman through his bold departure from the conventional approach of batik painting for clothing to the creation of new designs for interior decoration.
Now with his products sold to various parts of the world and with occasional economic upheavals he has had to go through, the only bad period his business faced was that in the wake of the 2002 bombing of Bali, the destination of 80 percent of his sales.
Pak Gito, as the batik artist is commonly called, is a 1979 graduate of Yogyakarta's Indonesian Fine Arts Academy and now lives in Gunting, Triharjo, Pandak district, Bantul regency, some 30 kilometers south of Yogyakarta.
As his job in Jakarta promised no better prospects, he returned home to join a group of batik painters in Taman Sari, a batik village in Yogyakarta. In this community, he initiated batik designs primarily meant for interior or wall decoration rather than merely for clothing. In 1982, he introduced decorative batik sheets.
'Decorative batik constitutes Yogyakarta's typical batik painting art not found in other regions,' said the father of four and grandfather of one, showing his decorative batik cloth ordered by an Arab entrepreneur. His designs portray such pictures as temples, beaches, traditional houses, superstars and statesmen.
In 1986 Sugito decided to move to the village of his wife, Juminah, in Taman Sari, where the couple carried on their creative work and promoted the distinctive batik pieces. In 1996 his business employed over 100 workers and his products were exported to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, America, Italy, Britain, Holland, France and Arab countries.
Sugito is actually capable of painting all kinds of batik, classic as well as contemporary styles, but today decorative batik is his prized commodity. In 2011, he won an award from the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI) for the category of the largest quantity and longest production of batik (2,200 meters), in Bantul.
His achievements have inspired local people originally working with his Pragitha Batik Painting Art Studio to open their own batik business units after gaining some experience. 'I'm happy to see them motivated to become batik businessmen. This place is now known as a batik tourist village with 12 batik producers,' the 50-year-old said.
The decorative batik sheets now adorning not only the interior of houses but also offices and hotels were, in the beginning, intended to boost Yogyakarta's tourism through their paintings of tourist spots. Now the pictures have covered various other destinations in Indonesia.
'So don't be surprised to find most of the decorative batik pieces with images of temples to promote Borobudur, Yogya's Parangtritis beach, West Nusa Tenggara's Senggigi beach, Bali's Tanah Lot temple and Sumatra's traditional Gadang houses, to mention a few,' Sugito noted.
A decorative batik sheet takes 7-10 days to finish manually, which makes this artistic commodity impossible to mass-produce. His creativity and accuracy in handling batik paintings, however, have attracted foreign tourists and entrepreneurs, who are visiting to place orders.
They bring samples of pictures to be painted on batik pieces, thus resulting in batik decorations with Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, John Lennon, Bruce Lee, Mahatma Gandhi, Fidel Castro and Simon Bolivar, among others.
'When Barack Obama was running for US president, his campaign team also ordered posters bearing the portraits of Barack Obama here,' revealed Sugito, showing the future president's picture against the background of the US flag he had designed.
He has also created decorative batik cloth picturing many old buildings in different countries such as Britain, France, Italy, Holland and China. Sugito's decorative painting talent has led him to overseas exhibitions in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, China, and he's now preparing to display in Italy.
'I've held three shows in Malaysia. The most impressive experience was in China in 2011, where over 10,000 visitors from kindergartens, schools and colleges curiously watched me painting batik manually. Batik is mechanically printed there,' he related. His decorative batik painting art also attracted Malaysia when he displayed his works there in 2008. A Malaysian entrepreneur ordered 20 typical batik motifs of Malaysia with Malay-styled Islamic touches.
'I was surprised to notice that after I sent my decorative batik sheets, later they labeled them as made in Langkawi, Malaysia, no longer my products,' he said.
Sugito felt he was properly appreciated in Europe because his decorative batik continued to carry the name of his studio, Pragitha. Quite often, many regions in Indonesia remove the name. When he sent his batik pieces ordered by Singapore, later they were packed and labeled as made in Singapore while his name was retained.
'I have no objection because as an artist I will incur losses to have my works patented. It's expensive to do so and it's only valid for ten years. During the period we'll keep creating and changing our motifs. It would be very costly with each creative process being patented. So I've just patented my business name,' he concluded.
