Batik painting was popular and widely used among Singaporean and Malaysian artists between the 1950s and 1970s. On the declining popularity of batik painting in Singapore since then, Associate Professor of Arts and Culture Management, and Senior Fellow at SMU Wee Kim Wee Centre, Kwok Kian Chow said that batik paintings are a category of printmaking and lack the flexibility seen in oil paintings. He added that batik paintings were mainly used by artists in the earlier era to explore issues of personal identity.