Laetitia Yhap/THE CATCH

""For most tourists or townspeople the seeming chaos of the Stade presents as a kind of unruly 'Sculpture Park' where you pick your way through the paraphernalia to where the boats are on the edge, ready waiting. Most often, there is no sign of activity. But there is a hidden world here. Fishermen live their lives based on an entirely different timescale to most other people & this hidden world is what I sought to understand when I first began my drawings & paintings.

Hidden in a random box of paintings in a junk shop in the Old Town, film maker Mark French found a small triangular painting depicting a helicopter rescue off the harbour arm... from the date & the signature, (1974) he followed a trail & eventually we met. This was a year ago & we began to work on a film which focusses on some of the paintings which span the 25 year period of my exclusive concentration on the fishing subject- to which I gained unique entry. Mark was also allowed to enter this world & the film contains exclusive interviews with the fishermen themselves.

We are now fortunate to have the offer to show some of the featured paintings & the film at the Memorial Gallery- a wonderful gallery hidden in the centre of town. Two of the paintings from this series are major works & are in the public realm, but hidden- each in a different way...  One in the collection (store) of Hastings Museum & Art Gallery & the other in the Fisherman's Museum, but hung so high on a crowded wall, it is well above the sightlines. It is intended to borrow these works back for the exhibition."

Laetitia Yhap 2009