Delaine Le Bas is an English Romani Gypsy who lives and works in various locations across the United Kingdom and Europe. Born in 1965 in Worthing, United Kingdom, she holds an MA from St Martins School Of Art, London, and works in a mixture of art forms including mixed media installations, drawing, performance, film, photography and sculpture. She exhibits across the globe, as a returning exhibitor at the American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA, at the International Festival d’Art Singulier at Roquevaire, France, and at the 1st Roma Pavilion of the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Le Bas’ works deal with issues of exclusion, identity, stereotypes, untold histories, misrepresentation, gender, of being the ‘other’. Clothing and textiles, especially their cultural, symbolic and identifying qualities, are strands that she contests above all in terms of the stereotypical and political ideas that they continue to endorse. Costume in particular plays a major role within her performative practice, as well as the fabrics in the large detailed installations that she creates. Site-specific work is a key part of Le Bas’ practice, and she often uses locally salvaged materials, leading to outcomes in film, photography, painting, drawing and performance work outside the gallery environment. The essence of a place where a work has been created is of primary importance: its history, contested spaces and local materials are reflected in a ‘bricolage’ practice.

Recent projects include To Gypsyland, co-curated by Barby Asante, and work with the artist Ronke Osinowo and photographer Tara Darby, which has led to a new collaborative project: Bound By No Nation. Witch Hunt, Le Bas’ solo exhibition commissioned in 2009 by ASPEX, continues to tour internationally. Safe European Home? is a large-scale installation created by Le Bas and her husband Damian as an ongoing project since 2011, and which has been exhibited widely in places such as Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, Dresden, Colchester. As part of the third edition of the Project Biennial Of Contemporary Art D-O Ark Underground she created a site-specific work inside Tito’s Atomic War Command Bunker in Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In her artist’s statement for the catalogue of the Paradise Lost exhibition in 2007, Le Bas said: ‘My works are the struggle to escape the stereotypes, and l employ symbols that the viewer thinks they understand. […] Employing the materials of the everyday, all formed together in a manner that allows then to be precious yet reclaimed.’

www.togypsyland.blogspot.co.uk

Exhibitions

1997
International Self Taught / Outsider Art – St Brannocks Gallery, Norfolk
Damian & Delaine Le Bas – Fashion Street, London
The Book Project – touring exhibition, venues throughout the UK
City – The Clerk’s House, London

1998
Error and Eros: Love Profane and Divine – American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA

1999
Error and Eros: Love Profane and Divine – American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA
Group Show – Raw Vision Headquarters, Hertfordshire

2000
Elvision 2000 – INTUIT: The Centre for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago
Damian & Delaine Le Bas – Broomhill, Broomhill Art Hotel and Sculpture
Damian & Delaine Le Bas – Raw Vision, Raw Vision Headquarters, Hertfordshire
International Festival d’Art Singulier – Roquevaire, France
The Book Project – touring exhibition, venues throughout the UK
International Romani Conference – Greenwich, UK

2001
Obsessive Visions: Art Outside the Mainstream – England & Co, London
Outlaws – James Colman, London
Le Bas: Outsider Art – Made to Measure, London
Shop – Brighton Festival, Brighton
Outsiders – The October Gallery, October Gallery, London
The Book Project – University of Lancaster, Preston

2002
Wanted: Dead or Alive – James Colman, London
The Book Project – Norwich Fringe Festival, Norwich
International Festival d’Art Singulier – Roquevaire, France
Upstart – James Colman, London
The Book Project – 5th Contemporary Artist Book Fair, Dean Clough, Halifax

2003
Souvenir – Transition, London
Outlaws – James Colman / Pauline Flach, London
’Orrible Little Bastards’ – Neon Gallery, London
The Book Project – West End Arts Festival, Glasgow
Scritch Scratch – Transition, London

2004
Shop – Space-Two-Ten-Two, London
She’s No Angel – James Colman, London
60 Seconds – Darklight Film Festival, Dublin, Ireland
Miniatures – Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland, Oregon
International Festival d’Art Singulier – Roquevaire, France
Raw Vision, Equal Rights to Creativity: An Exhibition of Outsider Art – Mexico Gallery, London
60 Seconds – 291 Gallery, London
60 Seconds – Space Two-Ten-Two, London
Gallery Artists – James Colman, London
Love n Bullets – Transition, London
Girl on Girl – Transition, London

2005
Acid Drops & Sugar Candy – Transition, London
The Art of The Book – University of Missouri, St Louis, USA
Race, Class, Gender # Character – American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA
Eng-Er-Land – Studio at 102, Tea Building, London
Room – Transition, London
Raw Vision 50 – Serpentine, London
Divine Messages – Harmony Gallery, Los Angeles
Outsider Art, Prague Biennial – Prague
Kartoffelkopf, Mish Mash Video – Rampart Centre, Whitechapel, London
Punk – People Unknown Collective, London

2006
Contemporary Gypsy – Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent
International Festival d’Art Singulier – Roquevaire, France
Outsider Art – Moscow Museum of Outsider Art (in collaboration with the City of Bar)
Second Site – Abbott’s Hall, Museum of East Anglian Life, Stowmarket, Suffolk
Paper World – Transition, London
Second Site – The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich, London
Internal Guidance Systems – Pearl and Wonder Ballroom Locations, Mark

2007
Paradise Lost – 1st Roma Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice
Refusing Exclusion – Prague Biennale, Prague
Chavi – Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, London
Underbelly Deptford X – Deptford Market Traders Yard, London
O Dreamland – Greatstone, Kent
Internal Guidance Systems –Tag Gallery, Nashville, USA

2008
Paradise Lost – Galleria Sonia Rosso, Turin
The Fabric of Myth – Compton Verney, Warwickshire
Biennale Cuvee – O.K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz
Shanty Town of The Sleeping Beauties and The Sleeping Demons – Hordaland International Art Gallery, Bergen
The House Of The Juju Queen – solo exhibition, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin
Meet Your Neighbours, Akademie Graz, Graz

2009
Living Together: estrategias para la convivencia – Montehermoso, Vitoria, Spain

2011
Safe European Home? – Wiener Festwochen, Vienna
Reconsidering Roma: Aspects of Roma and Sinti Life in Contemporary Art – Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin
Witch Hunt – Campbell Works, London

2012
Gypsy Revolution – Museum of East Anglian Life, Suffolk

Source: gallery8.org, Paradise Lost catalogue, 2007 (Tímea Junghaus and Katalin Székely, eds)