Laetitia Yhap (b. 1941 London, UK) graduated from Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in 1962. Following her graduation, and, through the support of the Leverhulme Research Scholarship, she travelled to Italy for a year to research Renaissance art and architecture. In 1965, she gained her postgraduate degree from the Slade School of Fine Art. Yhap lives and works in Hastings, UK.

‘The Propeller’ is an unusually shaped work, echoing a shield. Carpentered by Yhap, she has created the framing structure out of parts from a boat. Its narrative scene echoes the concept of a predella and the paint itself is applied in flat layers referencing frescoes. The work depicts a quiet, unheroic moment of repainting the boat. The composition is framed by two figures and a small dog in the foreground and a boat going out to sea in the background. Yhap emphasizes the men working rather than the natural beauty of the beach.

She creates a tableau vivant of the locale of Hastings fishing beach, which still hold freshly inventive quality and now speak to a universal theme of a post-industrial world. Documenting the rituals of comings and goings, the scenes are representative of all life, a natural microcosm.