Beach fork, 2010

Alison Wilding is a twentieth century English sculptor. She studied at Nottingham College of Art, the Ravensbourne College of Art and Design and finally at the Royal College of Art, where she left in 1973. Although she began her career specializing in multimedia artworks, she is perhaps best known for her abstract sculptures which she used a large array of materials to create. She has worked with wood, bronze, stone, wax, silk, steel and a whole host of other materials. One of her best known pieces of work is called Stormy Weather and beeswax, oil and pigment rubbed into steel. She was inventive and groundbreaking in her methodologies. She made one significant piece of public artwork which is located on the River Wear in Sunderland. The piece is calledAmbit and consists of a number of steel tubes which float on the river and are lit at night. Alison Wilding was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1988 and 1992.