Delaine Le Bas:
Tutis A Rinkeni Moola, Abri

About the exhibition

Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition of Delaine Le Bas, a cross-disciplinary artist from a Romany background. Paintings, drawings, texts, embroidery and other works with fabric along with a large scope of found-objects form a series of smaller installations that converge into a large, integral whole that spreads into the gallery space across two floors. Le Bas weaves and creates a particular universe which are images of her life, those of her family, and of the community. Despite the political undertone almost omnipresent in her creation, the sense of intimacy, sometimes to the extent of exposing internal self that is sometimes even painful to witness, turns her oeuvre humane and fragile.

The present exhibition breathes and reflects what was, and is the world of Delaine and Damian Le Bas, her late husband who died unexpectedly on 9th December 2017. A prolific artist, Damian was also an indefatigable activist whose artistic career was closely knit with his drive to create the pan-European Gypsyland, the undertaking that Delaine has shared also with larger artistic Romany community across Europe.

The exhibition ultimately touches the universal theme of love and loss. Le Bas exposes all of the facets of the relationship with her late husband using fragments from the diaries she has kept since his death along with older texts and incorporating elements that span their artistic careers and life together. It is indeed a deeply personal account, a record of endeavour to interiorise and come to terms with the pain that comes with life and death, but importantly, it is also a promise, that something does endure beyond life.

Statement by the artist:

Tutis Rinkeni Moola, Abri..

Love is strange, you think you know what it is, you taste it when it first captures you, then the thought of not having it torments you, the fear of its loss you only truly know once and for all when it is snatched away from you forever.

With grief as a partner a new relationship develops between you and the one that you love

Over the past year I have had to develop a new relationship with Damian one that transcends time and the boundaries of what common sense would describe as normality

I am wrapped in decades of artwork, memories, experiences and now I alone have to unravel in the artworks and memories to construct a new world and universe of images and cyphers that convey my experience of life, love & loss without glamorising over the difficulties that a relationship based in passion and artistic creativity entails

Life throws punches at you consistently, this is the hardest one that I could not avoid and have had to take the full force of

I now feel like I live in a parallel universe that is connected to this one but in which I float above it at the same time

In this installation I am trying in the only way I know how through my art and Damian’s to give a small glimpse into our world and articulate what we had and continue to have because our relationship has not ended in so many ways

He was often tortured by so many demons that often I thought I would never be able to save him from them but now he is a beautiful ghost and free and he gave me so much that this installation is a thank you to him for always supporting me, encouraging me to truly be me, that love is a key to so much which has also created a place in this world where I am surrounded by so many beautiful human beings

Love is so hard to quantify in world where hate seems to dominate the discourse of everything.

I have lost my artistic partner in crime with our art materials as weapons, but our work continues.

I would like to thank my dearest Candice & Damian James for the title in Romani.

Delaine Le Bas

Delaine Le Bas was born in Worthing, West Sussex in 1965 where she lives and works. She studied for her MA at St Martins School of Art, London. Her works have been exhibited internationally and include Prague Biennale in 2005 and 2007, ‘Paradise Lost’ the first Roma Pavilion for the Venice Biennale in 2007, ‘Witch Hunt’ for the Gwangju Biennale South Korea 2012, and Athens Biennale 2018. She co-curated ‘Come Out Now!’, the first Roma Biennale 2018 an idea initiated by her late husband Damian Le Bas. In 2018 she had a solo exhibition ‘Untouchable Gypsy Witch’ at Transmission in Glasgow, and participated in ‘Orlando at the Present Time’, a group show inaugurating the Charleston Trust Gallery in Lewes, East Sussex.

Image: Installation view of the ongoing group show 'Orlando at the Present Time’ at Charleston Trust, Lewes. Photo by John Puddephatt