Sam Karuna is one of the heroes of Malaysian Batik. Although he grew up in Perak, Sam found his place early as an innovative Batik artist in the contemporary Batik heartland of the state Penang. Penang is where most of the Batik giants found their inspiration and where their talents were recognized.

Sam is well known abroad and at home. His name crops up often in the context of the Batik art form. Most of the reasons Sam’s reputation precedes him has to do with the fact that in his quiet way, this artist is not only prolific but he conducts a Batik Fine Art Training Centre for foreign art teachers, students, and Batik enthusiasts. To date, approximately more than 8000 foreign students have attended his courses.

Artists in Malaysia continuously invented new ways of executing Batik, the essence of most of their imagery remained very much tied up with traditional effects such as cracking, fragmented colour planes, and defined outlines.

Sam takes his Batik much further. As a practicing artist since the 60’s, Sam started with watercolour and oils. After extensive research in Batik, he found his calling in with this medium. Following exhibitions in Penang, Singapore, and Bangkok, Sam was encouraged to go on tour in Australia and held 10 solo exhibitions throughout the country. Sam’s appeal lies in the fact that he has taken the medium even further than his peers before him. His vision of Batik, a total diversionism, revealed his unique techniques making a manifesto of Batik painting. Sam is concerned with not losing any credit for originality of his technique and has guarded the secret that gives his paintings a degree of detail which is seldom achieved in Batik painting.

Unlike conventional Batik painting, Sam does not rely on defined segmented figures and scenarios so common with Batik Painting. He has successfully adapted a unique technique that gives his realistic and impressionistic paintings a mottled surface glow, he has named it as 'dyetik'.