Quartz Studio is pleased to present The Death of the Pythia, the second solo show in Turin by the British artist Delaine Le Bas (Worthing, UK, 1965). “The Death of the Pythia” is the title of an irreverent story by the Swiss writer (and painter) Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Published in 1976, its main character, Pannychis XI, the priestess of Delphi, “tall and thin like almost all the Pythias that came before her,” reveals the true purpose of her prophesying: to mock her faithful, displaying their vacuous credulity.
The Pythia’s character is clearly defined in the classical myth and humorously interpreted by Dürrenmatt. She fits perfectly in the repertoire of female figures that Le Bas has gathered over the years. On the occasion of Artissima 2024, like the Pythias prophesying in the limestone cave of the sanctuary of Delphi in Greece, Le Bas, an English artist of Romani origins, has installed artworks made of different materials in Quartz Studio in Turin, using enigmatic words and original colourful figures that attract and inspire questions from those who cross the threshold of the space/sanctuary. The artist says, “The works are painted on cotton organdie. I made paintings with acrylic paint on three-meter-long, room-size fabrics. The subjects are the merging of figures created with an “exquisite corpse” technique, conceived based on my historical and recent works. They are effectively transformations over time of the visual archipelago in which I am immersed. In contrast, I decided to also present several small watercolors on paper.”
As she has in recent exhibitions, such as her participation in the final selection of the Turner Prize 2024, for her solo show at Quartz Studio, she draws in part from the wealth of imagery from her own artistic archive. With a notably feminist approach, she emphasizes the culture’s matriarchal orientation, while delivering an existentialist message much like that of the Pythia in Dürrenmatt’s story. Western civilization’s belief that the world is an ordered, perfectible system determined by our actions is an assumption completely undermined by current and historical events. Nonetheless, Le Bas and her vibrant microcosm of chaos seem to benevolently suggest for us an alternative to contemporary nihilism, becoming priests of the secular religion of images and small objects and entrusting ourselves to the miraculous tales they bear.
