Wine and finger food will be served on 10th December from 4pm onwards.

This delightful exhibition will intrigue art lovers of all persuasions and become a major event on the Bangkok art calendar.

The Artist

Lea is an international artist, renowned for her free-hand designs on silk, and has lived in Thailand since 1987.
During her vocational training with lace manufacturers in the Netherlands , Germany and Switzerland , she focused on design. After arriving in Thailand , Lea began to explore the properties of plain-woven rough and smooth Thai silk. Applying the 'hot-blow' technique, Lea paints free-hand, that is, without first sketching any pattern.

Significantly, Lea has developed the quality silk fabric herself over the past eighteen years through a project in Ban Reng Khai, a north-eastern Thai village in Surin province. She has been able to draw upon ancestral weaving traditions, which are rapidly disappearing from many parts of the country.

Through her activities, these traditions have been revitalized and, today, Ban Reng Khai silk, together with Lea's distinctive designs, receive national and international recognition. This was affirmed by the awarding of membership of the world-famous International Silk Association, located in Lyon , France . Lea's works encompass abstract and figurative silk paintings as well as fabric designs for interior decoration, furnishings and fashion.

Under Lea's bold and sweeping brushstrokes, even the plainest fabric suddenly comes vividly alive. Daring colour combinations, applied free-hand to form patterns and designs of great harmony and originality, have won Lea worldwide recognition. She has received several international awards for her work. In Thailand , Lea has received certificates of appreciation from HRH Princess Galayani Vadhana and HRH Princess Somsawali. By exploring ways of combining modern avant-garde fabric design on Thai silk, manufactured by centuries-old local techniques and tradition, Lea has built an artistic bridge between old and new, and East and West.

Ban Reng Khai Village

In 1987, a substantial donation from the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Bangkok enabled Lea Laarakker-Dingian to found the Ban Khai Weaving Project.

During the past eighteen years, Lea has initiated the study foundation, fishponds, a tree nursery, sericulture, a savings fund and agricultural fund, which allows the villagers to borrow money at a very low interest rate, enabling them to improve the quality of their crops, healthcare, village committee, library and more.

Working in partnership with the Thai NGO, Village Foundation, the weaving project now encompasses seven villages in Surin province. The aim is to extend this to fifteen villages.

The education and training of the weavers and dyers is of primary importance. Surin is one of the poorest areas of Thailand . The only hope for future generations is through education. To date, the foundation had funded the secondary education of more than five hundred young people.

Village life is basic; the looms are traditional, allowing repairs to be made on site. Although unable to complete with the speed of hi-tech machinery, the silk produced is superior, durable with a unique beauty which is totally Thai. Environmental awareness is reinforced by using only solar, vegetable and non-toxic dyes.

Finance for this project is derived solely from exhibitions and sales.

A UNIQUE FABRIC

Léa Silk is an exclusive hand woven fabric widely acclaimed for its superior quality and lustrous colour. Léa, the Dutch artist and textile specialist who lends her name to the silk, applies her innovative designs to selected lengths of this unique fabric to effect beautiful one-off creations valued by international designers and worn by European and Asian Royalty.

A UNIQUE PROCESS

Léa Silk is produced by village weavers in north-eastern Thailand where the soil is excellent for growing mulberry trees, the leaves being fundamental in creating the strong Sen-Hua and Sen-Lue silk thread essential to the durability of Léa Silk. Production is an entirely natural process. No toxic chemicals or industrial machines are used.

A UNIQUE ARRAY

Léa Silk is presented in a unique array of products ranging from stunning fabrics, fashion and fashion accessories to equally stunning cushion covers, coasters, cases, cards and decorative art forms. This unique array is also offered online at www.lea-silk.com. Orders are efficiently filled and securely shipped to any designated location in the world.

A UNIQUE ACCLAIMATION Léa Silk is regularly featured in both local and international fashion shows and exhibitions. Léa Silk and Léa's design applications to it have received numerous awards for outstanding quality in Asia , Europe and North America . The silk and design received the UNESCO AHPADA Seal of Excellence eleven times.

A UNIQUE EFFORT

Proceeds from the sales of Léa Silk are directed to an independent organization co-founded by Léa to promote village self-sufficiency in sericulture and silk weaving, integrated farming, micro-enterprise, healthcare and education. In recognition of this effort, Léa was knighted in The Order of Oranje Nassau by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands , in 1995.

A UNIQUE PROCESS

Sericulture

Producing Léa Silk begins with village weavers placing silkworms on trays of mulberry leaves where the worms consume 25,000 times their original weight in leaves during a 40-day period, at the end of which the worms commence spinning their cocoons. The forming cocoons are then transferred to twig bundles where cocoons are completed in one week

Raw Silk Yarn

Completed cocoons are unravelled in boiling water and the resulting raw silk yarn is hung to dry. The raw yarn's natural colouring ranges from light beige to bright yellow. To maintain its strength, the raw yarn is not bleached. The dried raw yarn is then immersed in a liquid made by running boiling water through the ashes of coconut husks and banana leaves. Doing this removes sericin, a stiffening substance, from silk fibre. Again hung and dried, the raw yarn is ready for dyeing. Colours are prudently selected to correspond with the yarn's natural tint.

Dyeing and Weaving

To ensure silk fibre is not damaged or negatively affected, only vegetable and non-toxic chemical dyes are used to achieve the lustrous colouring of Léa Silk. The traditional method of dyeing is immersing raw yarn in a dyeing solution to ensure consistent penetration. Once dyed, hung and dried, the yarn is reeled onto a tautening spool and stored until needed as warp or weft. When needed as warp, the dyed yarn is unwound from its spool through a warp comb which converts yarn into equal lengths of warp thread. Warp ends are then inserted into a weaving comb, thread by thread. The weaving comb is mounted on a loom where the warp is interwoven with a corresponding weft- similarly processed, but with threads being thinner than the warp. A weaver can produce half a meter of silk fabric in five hours.

Solar Dyeing

Developed by Léa, this innovative method employs dye mixed with a fixative which reacts to sunlight. Raw silk warp threads are tautly extended in direct sunlight to lengths of between 20 to 40 meters distance from a warp comb into which thread ends have been inserted. A group of weavers, each having a pot of individual colour, use paintbrushes to randomly apply their dyes to the threads. Sunlight fixes the dyes in eight hours. When the randomly dyed warp is interwoven with a raw weft, a silk fabric with a subtle yet dazzling rainbow effect is produced. A variation of solar dyeing is Léa applying her design to a length of raw silk fabric that has been tautened in direct sunlight. After the fixing period, a complete length of hand painted silk fabric has been produced.

Quality Control

Ámantee
131/Chaeng Wattana 13, Laksi, Bangkok 10210
Tel: 02-982-8694-5

Location map