Rita Trefois

Rita trained in textile chemistry and decorative art, and is now a Batik Artist and Lecturer. She has more than 25 years of experience in this field and is passionate about the Batik technique. Her backgrounds in scientific and artistic education encourage the conflict between technical skill and free creativity. Somewhere in the middle between technique and inspiration, a field of tension exists where her art works prospers.

Symbols, Japanese calligraphy and poetry are recent starting points for her artwork. She has an idealistic approach to Batik and is promoting the technique in lectures and workshops.

Initially her technique was very traditional: the Indonesian way, using canting and dipping for dyeing. Flowers, realistic and stylised, principally inspired the designs. Later the style became more abstract but still waxing with canting and brushes and dipping for the dyeing.

After lengthy experience with the silk painting, she combined these techniques with wax-resist as well as dip-dyeing. Trips to Indonesia in 1994 and 1995 encouraged Rita to experiment with wax-mixtures adapted to the weather conditions of Central Europe. Today she uses rollers, stamps, self-made utensils for waxing and she regularly uses discharge dyeing in her artwork, a technique she originally rejected. Depending on the required result, dyeing is done with reactive dyes, naphtols and vat dyes on cotton, silk, wool, paper and even wood.

After many years teaching principally in her home town of Gent, and as guest lecturer and speaker in Flanders, Rita began organising workshops with internationally known Artists. This culminated in the International Batik Gathering 'Now & Then' 1999 in Gent, which helped forge strong international links for all the participants resulting in exhibitions and workshops worldwide.