ART BRUT
Damian Le Bas was one of the leading Art Brut/Outsider artists from the UK. His work was first championed by Monika Kinley who ran the Outsider Archive in South Lambeth Road, London, in the 1980s. He was also mentored and encouraged by George Melly, Jazz musician and authority on Art Brut Surrealism and DaDa, Barbara Brown of RCA Textiles and John Maizels, Editor of Raw Vision magazine and author of Raw Creation.
Damian's work has been exhibited in many international art shows alongside the legends of Art Brut and Outsider Art such as Wolfli Darger and Carlo.
Damian Le Bas - British Artist
100% OUTSIDER
Damian Le Bas was born in Sheffield in 1963 to a Huguenot-Tinker-Traveller family. Attended Art School in Worthing and was asked to leave. Graduated with a Master's degree in Textile Design from Royal College of Art.
GYPSYLAND
Damian Le Bas was regarded as one of the leading figures in the contemporary Gypsy/Traveller/Romani art scene. Together with his wife and partner in art, Delaine Le Bas, both were included amongst the sixteen artists to take part in the First Roma Pavilion: Paradise Lost at Venice Biennale 2007.
The Le Bas' projects include Gypsyland, Gypsy Revolution, and Safe European Home?, a series of installations exhibited across Europe that explore identity, migration and borders.
Damian Le Bas has exhibited at international venues including Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin (2016), Kunstahalle Kallio, Helsinki (2012), the Venice Biennale (2007) and the Prague Biennale (2007), and worked closely with Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin on numerous projects including artwork for a musical Roma Armee.
After two decades of advocating for Roma representation, Damian Le Bas embarked on his most satisfying of collaborations, with Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theatre and the Roma Trial activist art organisation.
Challenging stereotypes and marginalisation, Damian Le Bas initiated the 1st Roma Biennale dedicated to art of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller and other communities which was celebrated posthumously in Berlin 2018.
Damian Le Bas died peacefully but unexpectedly in December 2017 at his home in Worthing.
GYPSY DADA
”With my pens I have made Artistic Conquests for the Gypsy Empire and shown the network possibilities for a race that represents freedom for mankind.”
Exhibitions
2023
Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London
Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn
Whitechapel Gallery, London
Damian Le Bas. Mapping Resistence.
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
Mucem - Musée des civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée, Marseille
2022
documenta 15, Kassel
2018
The Roma Spring, Art As Resistance
ERIAC, Berlin
Gypsyland Retrospective, 1st Roma Biennale
Gorki, Berlin
Safe European Home?
Worthing Museum & Art Gallery, Worthing, UK
Gateway To Paradise
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
2017
Transgressing the Past, Shaping the Future
ERIAC Art Space, Berlin
Stopping Places VI
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
Akathe Te Beshen
Centro Federico Garcia Lorca, Granada
Galerie Českých center, Praha, Prague
Disintegration
3.Berliner Herbstsalon, Gorki, Berlin
Romani History X
3.Berliner Herbstsalon, Gorki, Berlin
Scharfstellen_1
<rotor> Association For Contemporary Art, Graz, Austria
Kali Berga
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
#EUROMA
Various locations across Berlin
Universal Hospitality 2
Futura, Prague
Stretch Outsider Art Festival
Train Of Thought Gallery, Worthing, UK
Frei Sein!
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
Heidelberg Castle, Ottheinrichsberg, Heidelberg, Germany
Stretch Outsider Art Festival
Chrisp Street Market, London
2016
Frontier De Luxe
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
Atelier21, Aachen, Germany
Centro Cibeles De Cultura y Ciudadania, Madrid
Galerie Českých center, Praha, Prague
Gallery Rivoli 59, Paris
Kali Berga
Galerie Ksiegarnia Wystawa, Krakow
Frontier De Luxe, Universal Hospitality Into the City
Alte Poste, Vienna, Austria
Safe European Home? Damian and Delaine Le Bas
Art Exchange, University Of Essex, Colchester, UK
Blake's Outsiders
Worthing Museum & Art Gallery, Worthing, UK
2015
Safe European Home? Past Present Future
Hellerau Centre For The Arts, Dresden
Romani Revolution
Volkshochschule Aachen, Aachen, Germany
Inter Nation Art
A Group Show Of Contemporary Art
HDLU Zagreb, Croatia
Have A Look Into My Life!
Duplex 100m2, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
HALIML, Bucharest, Romania
Third Edition Of The Project Biennial Of Contemporary Art
D-0 Ark Underground 2015, Tito's Atomic War Command, Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2014
Grace in Thy Site / PH1 Artists
Residency at Eye of York, York, UK
Jaw Dikh!
JCC Galerie, Krakow, Poland
Akathe Te Beshen
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
Have A Look Into My Life!
Mediatheque Mateo Maximoff, Paris
Stadtmuseumgraz, Graz, Austria
Aubette, Strasbourg, France
To Gypsyland
198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, London
Akathe Te Beshen - Heir Um Au Bleiben
Kunststaion, Kleinassen, Germany
Safe European Home? No:6
MART, Dublin
2013
Safe European Home? No:5
1.Berliner Herbstsalon, Gorki Theatre, Berlin
Safe European Home? No:4 Past, Present, Future…
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
Caravanes! Festival Les
Un chez les Autres, Paris
Safe European Home? No:3
The Dandelion Project, Copenhagen
Safe European Home? No:2
CHB, Berlin
Black Butterflies
The New School House Gallery, York, UK
Stopping Places II
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
2012
Sa, So Amen Sa (All We Are)
Wilderrmann and Akademie Graz, Graz, Austria
Reclaiming Identity
Akademie Graz, Graz, Austria
Europe, Pays De Mon Enfance
Cergy, France
Gypsy Revolution UK
Museum Of East Anglian Life, Suffolk, UK
The Buccaneers
The Stade Hall, Hastings, UK
Gypsy Revolution
Cable Gallery, Helsinki
Kallio Kunsthalle, Helsinki
Wahlverwandtschaften. Imaginationen des Nomadischen in der Gegenwartskuns
Museum fur Volkerkunde, Hamburg
Gypsyland
Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
2011
Safe European Home? Into The City
Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria
Wir sind Bettler
Stadtmuseum Graz, Graz, Austria
Ministry Of Education Warning: Segregation Harms You And Others Around You.
Ministry of Culture, Prague, Czech Republic
2010
The World In A Few Steps
<ROTOR> Association For Contemporary Art, Graz, Austria
Stardust Boogie Woogie
A Monika Bobinska Project, London
Whose Map Is It? New Mapping By Artists
INIVA, London
Intuition, The Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection
The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Inside, Outside and The Spaces In Between
Kunstraum Next Andra, Graz, Austria
2009
Foreigners Everywhere with Claire Fontaine,
Karl Holmqvist, Stephan Dillemuth and Delaine Le Bas
T293, Naples , Italy
If Not Now
Trafo Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
Prognostic Bridewell
A.P.T. Deptford, London
Foreigners Everywhere with Claire Fontaine, Karl Homquist and Delaine Le Bas
D’vir Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
The Map Is Not The Territory Revisited
England & Co, London
Folk Magic and Curious Objects
Barristers Gallery, New Orleans, USA
2007
Paradise Lost: First Roma Pavilion
Biennale di Venezia 2007, Venice
Refusing Exclusion
3rd Prague Biennial, Prague
2005
Outsider Art
2nd Prague Biennial, Prague
2002
Wanted: Dead or Alive
James Colman Gallery, London
2001
Obsessive Visions: Art Outside The Mainstream
England & Co, London
Outlaws
James Colman, London
1997
Ingenious Creator
Nottingham
1991
Alpha Cubic gallery
Tokyo, Japan
Sårlingår
Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden
Public Collection
House of European History, Brussels, Belgium
Mucem - Musée des civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée, Marseille
Gypsies Heaven
Sparticus Lives
Goodbye my love
I'm off to Gypsy Heaven in space
Made by Tinkers Huganoats and Gypsys Souls.
Hardship in life
hopefully replaced by tranquility in death.
My heart is singing old tinker tunes like the Cornish coves used to do.
New freinds are silver and the old ones gold and luck wherever you go my freind
Damian Le Bas, 1999
He tried to live a good life but his soul was all ready gone to Devilsland.
For more meat on your spare ribs go to the Chinese take away top notch grub
Somebody help him he's got into a mess with his love life. Oh no he's got crabs too late.
GOD BLESS ALL THE HUGANOTS TINKERS GYPSIES AND ALL DIFFERENT TRAVELLERS
MINKIA