David Lucht is a contemporary realist experimental artist who creates his pieces using the wax resist medium of batik painting. He lives in the art community of Paducah, Kentucky with his wife Stefanie Graves, also an artist. Together they form Cowango Studios and are happy to welcome visitors to their studios and to this website.

Statement
Batik originated in the world of craft where people create objects that contribute a sense of grace and beauty to their daily lives. This sense of beauty in the commonplace is always in the background as I work to develop my imagery. All my efforts go towards making this ancient craft work towards fine art.

In batik the image and the cloth become a fully integrated thing. There is no surface decoration in batik. The image is established in the fiber of the cloth. To me that is a very powerful idea.

Batik painting offers solutions for me. It provides an escape valve that allows me to see the history of art differently. It comes from the world of craft and that appeals to me in many ways: as communal, as beauty in the utilitarian, as an open ended alternative. Batik is undiscovered territory. It has magical qualities of obscurity and revelation. The finished work is only seen in its entirety at the very end of the process, when the wax is removed and the image revealed.