Wilson, Keith
Sign for Art (Stelae 2014)
2014
Sculpture : Black polyurethane elastomer
Commissioned by the University of Leeds, 2014Image credit University of Leeds
Details
Artist(s): Wilson, Keith (1965-)(Artist)
Title: Sign for Art (Stelae 2014)
Date created: 2014
Accession number: LEEUA 2014.004
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/391678
Collection group(s): University Art Collection | Public art
Description
2 wavy 'stelae' made of black plyurethane elastomer, cast in studio in manner to create a rippled surface.
Born in Birmingham, Keith Wilson studied at Ruskin School of Art, Oxford, from 1985-88. He took his MA at the Slade, before teaching at the Royal College of Art, and he soon established a reputation as a sculptor with significant solo exhibitions at Camden Arts Centre, Compton Verney and the Wellcome Collection.
Wilson’s best-known public artwork is 'Steles (Waterworks)', an installation for the Olympic Park (2012). His practice involves ‘on-going enquiry into the contingency of meaning specifically in relation to the public functioning of sculpture’. 'Sign for Art (Stelae) 2014)' references Wilson’s early years working
as an art instructor for deaf-blind adults in the 1980s. ‘Drawing two spaced fingertips in a wave motion across the forehead of the student – a tactile brainwave sign – announced the arrival of the artist, the subject of art and the imminent activity of making art’, he remembersed. ‘This modification of the British Sign Language, presumably derived from the making of a brushstroke, struck home and stayed with me’, he has explained. Standing in the centre of Beech Grove Plaza on the University of Leeds campus, the artwork has been affectionately christened by students ‘the squiggle'.
Physical characteristics
Category: Sculpture
Technique: cast
Medium: Black polyurethane elastomer
Object: width 770mm height 5250mm
Accession details
Accession number: LEEUA 2014.004
Accession date: 03/10/2014
Credit: Commissioned by the University of Leeds, 2014
Source: Commission; Wilson, Keith
On our website
Online exhibition: Keith Wilson - Sign for Art (Stelae 2014)
Keith Wilson (b.1965) Sign for Art (Stelae 2014). One example of public art on the campus of the University of Leeds