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Sign for Art (Stelae 2014)

Sign for Art (Stelae 2014)

2014

Sculpture : Black polyurethane elastomer

Commissioned by the University of Leeds, 2014

Image 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

Sign for Art (Stelae 2014)

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

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