Delaine Le Bas: Un-Fair-Ground
13 February – 31 May 2026
The Whitworth presents a major solo exhibition by Delaine Le Bas, following her nomination for the Turner Prize in 2024.
Delaine Le Bas’s first solo show in Manchester presents an expansive overview of the artist’s groundbreaking feminist practice, including painting on calico, drawing, embroidery, video, and performance. Informed by Le Bas’s studies in fashion design, her deep engagement with folklore and witchcraft, and her Romany heritage, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive mixed-media environment of found and invented images that move beyond racial, political and sexual borders.
Watch the Delaine Le Bas teaser on YouTube
Delaine Le Bas’s first solo show in Manchester presents an expansive overview of the artist’s groundbreaking feminist practice, including painting on calico, drawing, embroidery, video, and performance. Informed by Le Bas’s studies in fashion design, her deep engagement with folklore and witchcraft, and her Romany (British Gypsy, Romani, Roma and Traveller) heritage, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive mixed-media environment of found and invented images that move beyond racial, political and sexual borders.
Un-Fair-Ground brings together key works from across the artists' career with new pieces, shown in dialogue with artworks from the Whitworth’s collection. The exhibition begins with the monumental mural Un-Fair-Ground (2024), originally created for Glastonbury Music Festival and reconstructed at the Whitworth - a vivid fusion of myth, pop culture, and activist politics.
Throughout the galleries, Le Bas questions art historical hierarchies by placing an eclectic selection of artworks from the Whitworth’s collection into an iconoclastic display. Inspired by The Metabolic Museum (2020) by theorist and curator Clémentine Deliss, Le Bas has chosen to display works from the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, including Madge Gill and Judith Scott, alongside established modernists such as Giorgio de Chirico and canonical British artists including William Blake, creating unexpected encounters across time, genre, and reputation.
At the heart of the exhibition is a performance space, facilitating new forms of engagement with the artists' practice and hosting live events. Here, Le Bas has collaborated with Manchester-based artists Leslie Thompson and Sarah Lee from Venture Arts. Paintings and embroideries made by Thompson and Lee during creative sessions with the artist are displayed alongside Le Bas’s own work, extending the exhibition’s collaborative and inclusive spirit.
The exhibition is organised by the Whitworth, The University of Manchester and co-curated by Delaine Le Bas with Valentin Diakonov, Curator (Modern and Contemporary Art) and Hannah Vollam, Assistant Curator (Art) at the Whitworth.
Exhibition Programme
- See the full events programme
Podcast Interview - A Walk in the Park
Listen to our Cultural Park Keeper, Francine Hayfron, discuss Delaine Le Bas' journey as an artist, her creative process, the importance of collaboration, and what it means to work beyond the studio.
Resources and credits
Easy Read Guide
Written and designed by Sally Hirst, Venture Arts Artist-in-Residence, this Easy Read explores the themes and artworks in Delaine Le Bas: Un-Fair-Ground in an accessible manner.
Press release
Discover more about the artist and the exhibition at the Whitworth.
Image Credit: Delaine Le Bas Un-Fair-Ground detail at Unfairground Glastonbury Festival 2024. Courtesy of the artist, ISOR CIC, RTA Collection. Delaine Le Bas was assisted by Rose Waudby. Photographer: Stephen Devine. Exhibition credit: The exhibition is organised by the Whitworth, The University of Manchester.