Delaine Le Bas deals with the body as a stolen artefact and her performances have taken place both inside gallery spaces and on the street.

Clothing and its identifying significance is part of her everyday practice as an artist and this is continually documented in the works that she produces. Clothing along side her own hair have become part of her extensive installations that deal with issues of stereotyping, her use of the body as a means of developing a dialogue about its place within the history of prejudice and racism. What it means to be the ‘outsider’ and the many forms that this takes in terms of ideas of beauty, sexuality, location and the ambiguity of who we are as individuals and how we can develop personas to conduct intensive development of ideas around what male or female means. What is the meaning of Feminism when you are a married, heterosexual female who loves her partner, has a child, is an independent artist, who dresses how she pleases, makes the art work she wants, and continually questions the status quo.

This position is not the submissive female Gypsy stereotype and all of Delaine’s works questions what this is and who has made the rules historically regarding this and who are those who still wish to continue binding us by out dated modes of thinking with no authority other than their counted colonialist attitudes. Delaine sees part of her artistic practice to crack open the dialogue and see what ills it spills into the conversation of the ongoing Gypsy Roma Traveller debate.

– Isaac Blake for RomaniArts