A row has erupted in the cathedral city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire over a “disrespectful” Amazonian love god statue due to be installed as part of the city’s £1m art trail.
The artist Jason Wilsher-Mills has been forced to defend his 1.9 metre (6ft 3in) bronze work after people said its placement so close to Wakefield Cathedral, outside the entrance of the Ridings shopping centre, was a “mockery of Christianity”.
Wakefield council’s planning website received more than 60 objections to the work of art, including claims that the figure would be “an offence to Christian worshippers, and what we believe”, “disrespectful to the Christian faith” and a “mockery of Christianity as a whole”.
Another said putting “a symbol of a sun god in the vicinity of the cathedral” would be “an affront to our Christian heritage and our identity as a cathedral city”.
The work, titled Amazonian Caiman God, is inspired by the artist’s childhood in Wakefield, and he said the central message was “love and hope”.
In notes explaining the artwork, he said it depicts “an Amazonian Caiman god, who would be holding the two lovers in his right hand, and making sure mum and dad arrived on the ferry boat to Walton Hall, the home of Squire Waterton”.
Wilsher-Mills, a disabled artist, who has used a wheelchair since the age of 11, said: “This would serve as a metaphor for caring for the Earth, as well as being about personal love stories.”
He added that his work “celebrates disability, my northern working-class heritage and popular culture, through cutting-edge technologies and brightly coloured, large scale humorous, but challenging art”.
There are not thought to be plans to change the locations in the trail, which would give people in Wakefield a “real sense of pride in our fascinating history and heritage and connect key points of the city together while ensuring that everyone is able to access culture and enjoy it”, the Wakefield councillor Michael Graham said in December when the plan was announced.
The series of five sculptures making up the art trail will guide visitors “on a journey of discovery” from Westgate station to the Hepworth gallery. It will also feature a 3.5 metre work outside the West Yorkshire History Centre by the internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist Annie Morris.
The free, outdoor public art is funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and will be installed in the summer, subject to planning permission.
