Laetitia Yhap was born in St Albans. She studied at Camberwell College of Arts and the Slade School of Fine Art, both in London. For some time after leaving Camberwell Yhap painted in an abstract manner, producing works in which the human figure was absent. By the end of the 1979s the influence of the humanist themes in the work of such artists as Donatello, Breughel, Millet and Degas asserted itself in her paintings when she introduced a new, thematic content into her work: the everyday life of fishermen on the fishing coast at Hasting on the South East coast of England. She constructs the boards for her paintings herself, creating shapes which deliberately distort geometrical forms and which heighten the restricted sense of space in the composition. The beach scenes always look out to sea, and the horizon is constantly evaded, drawing the spectator closer to the scene. A wide range of almost unmixed oil colours are used in the paintings, and material elements evoking the fisherman’s world, such as sand and rope, are often included in the works.

Glossary

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.

  • Oil

    A medium in which ground pigments are mixed to produce a paste or liquid that can be applied to a surface by a brush or other tool; the most common oil used by artists is linseed, this can be thinned with turpentine spirit to produce a thinner and more fluid paint. The oil dries with a hard film, and the brightness of the colour is protected. Oil paints are usually opaque and traditionally used on canvas.