Bappaditya Biswas Brings Back the Glory of Chintz

Bappaditya and Rumi Biswas, a husband and wife team and textile designers based in Kolkata, India, are legendary for Bai Lou - their label of artistic handwoven textiles - and their store Byloom. During the pandemic, Bappa rediscovered his love for hand-painting textiles and his artistic chintz textiles are wowing textile lovers.

Join Brinda Gill as she chats with Bappaditya about their work:

Brinda Gill: Your journey of handmade textiles spans twenty five years!

Bappaditya Biswas: Yes! It has been a very fulfilling journey! In the year 2000, Rumi and I started Bailou, a studio of hand-woven textiles of West Bengal. We have been working at the grassroots and forming a community of young, aspiring weavers of Bengal, growing along with them through our entrepreneurial journey. Building Byloom, the iconic store for handmade textiles, added knowledge of handling and marketing handmade artisanal merchandise. More recently, I have immersed myself in hand-painted chintz. The work brings back an almost-lost art.

BG: How did you get drawn to hand-painting textiles?

BB: Hand painting textile traditions and block printing have always attracted me. Even before my study at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), I was a block printer and batik artist. I did an apprenticeship in screen-printing at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. But then handlooms took over as I wanted to experiment and create new textures. The pandemic gave me the time to rekindle my love for hand-painting textiles.

BG: Was there a pivotal moment that reignited your love for hand-painted textiles?

BB: The first pivotal moment was when I saw huge hand-painted kalamkari and some chintz textiles at an exhibition around 2004, from the private collection of Praful and Shilpa Shah. Their grandeur and mammoth size just swept me off my feet, and I wanted to create the same. Fortuitously, I chanced upon a natural dye painting workshop conducted by Michel Garcia and learnt the basics from the master. And then the pandemic gave me an opportunity to become an artisan and practice with my hands.

BG: How did you develop your practice?

BB: Initially, I kept posting my little experiments of hand-painting on Instagram. Australian artist Susie Vickery offered me a collaboration and I participated with her at the Indian Ocean Triennial in Australia. Art curator Ina Puri appreciated my work and offered me a solo show in Delhi at the Gallery Threshold, where all my works were sold out. Encouraged by the response, I bought a small apartment in Kolkata last year and set up my painting studio. Apart from being a space separate from Bailou, Byloom and my other work, its quiet and stillness makes it an ideal space for me to paint. Textile lovers can visit the studio with prior appointment. 

BG: Please tell us about the process.

BB: I start from the weaving of the fabric, which is a blend of thick hand-spun cotton and linen in the warp and weft respectively, so it has a beautiful texture. The fabric is first scoured properly to open the fibres for better absorption of colours. Next the fabric is boiled with the respective tannin and later rinsed and dried. The fabric is then stretched and pinned on the table.

All the motifs are hand-drawn on the fabric. The motifs are inspired from fabled 16th and 17th century chintz, miniature paintings, Mughal paintings, the work of William Morris, Chinese porcelain, Japanese woodblock prints among other art forms. The details is where the crux lies. 

I then start painting the mordants, which are organic salts like alum that are mixed with natural gum and then painted. Next step is the dyeing. The areas painted with the mordants absorb the colour from the dyebath resulting in the pattern. For every colour, it has to be mordanted separately and dyed in the particular dyebath which is extracted from dye plants. We use madder, marigold, henna, hibiscus, indigo, cutch and fermented iron water. 

BG: Are there unexpected surprises when working with natural dyes?

BB: There is always an element of surprise once the piece comes out of the dyebath! The way the colour interacts with the mordant is very sensitive. Since these are all immersion dyed, there is no control on the reaction inside the dye-pot. Pleasant and unpleasant surprises are an everyday phenomenon, but is always a learning curve.

BG. Are you working on other forms of textile art?

BB: I am collaborating with my community of weavers to create woven textile art. It is a summation of my almost 25 years of working and experiments with them. It’s our journey together in search of a new modern identity. It is a space where we are free to think and experiment in order to innovate without any baggage.

Interview by Brinda Gill 

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Further Information:

Instagram: @bappaditya.bailou 

Photographs by: Rumi Biswas