Professor Keith Wilson’s latest artwork revealed at the University of Leeds

After leaving the Slade in the late 1980s, Keith Wilson worked for a year with deaf-blind adults as art instructor. Drawing two spaced fingertips in a wave motion across the forehead of a student, a tactile ‘brainwave’ sign announced the arrival of the artist, the subject of art, and the imminent activity of making art. This modification of the British Sign Language sign struck home, and stayed with Keith.

‘The sign seemed to contain Art’s three basic frames, but mainly because it seemed to directly communicate art’s truest form. It seemed to be itself an artwork.’
Professor Keith Wilson

His work Sign for Art was unveiled at the University of Leeds campus and the proximity of the sculpture and the newly refurbished Beech Grove Plaza to the refurbished Social Sciences building means this area of the University of Leeds campus is now much more welcoming and accessible, providing a space where people can meet, relax or simply pass through and enjoy. The 5.1 metre (16ft 8ins) sculpture is made of Keith’s signature black polyurethane elastomer, which gives its surface a dramatic, rippled effect.

Find out more about the artwork unveiling here.

Keith Wilson is a Professor of Sculpture and researcher at the Art and Design Research Centre (ADRC) at Sheffield Hallam University.