
Six years ago she created a statue of a ‘typical family’ showing a mother, father and two children. That was in Italy.

Asked to do something similar in Britain, however, Gillian Wearing has come up with a sculpture which many may feel is far from typical.

Her £100,000 work representing what it means to be an ‘ordinary’ family in 2014 is of two single mothers and their children.

Sisters Roma and Emma Jones and their sons Kyan and Shaye were chosen from 372 nominations to be the subjects of A Real Birmingham Family.

The £100,000 bronze sculpture immortalises the Jones family made up by sisters Emma and Roma and their sons Kyan and Shaye

The real thing: Sisters Roma and Emma Jones with their sons, pictured next to the statue which depicts their family set-up

The family stand next to their sculpture in Birmingham (left) - which is a million miles away from the artist's depiction of a typical family in Italy, created six years ago, which is made up of a more conventional mother, father and two kids (right)

The bronze sculpture by the Turner Prize winner shows the four of them hand-in-hand and Emma heavily pregnant with her second son, Isaac, now eight months old.

But the absence of any adult male or father figure has drawn criticism.

The mixed race sisters, who live separately, have not revealed details of their family set-up, leaving many to ask why the fathers aren’t included in the piece.

Birmingham Yardley MP John Hemming said: ‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with single parent families but I always find it sad when fathers are not involved in the lives of their children.’

The Lib Dem also questioned why public money was spent on such a controversial sculpture. ‘When the council can’t afford to clear up the rubbish on the streets, £100,000 is not peanuts,’ he said.

Craig Pickering, of the charity Families Need Fathers, said: ‘Everybody knows that families can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes but this interpretation of a family seems most bizarre. It is factually inaccurate and totally out of step.

‘Children do better when they have both their mother and their father playing an active role in their lives.’

Dr Patricia Morgan, a leading researcher on family policy, said the artist’s decision to portray a fatherless family was ‘a disgrace’. ‘We should know whether or not there’s a man involved here,’ she said. ‘Is he taking responsibility, living with them, or not? These are things the viewer needs to know.

‘They are putting this up as some kind of ideal which people have to be like or have to evolve in this direction, but it represents under 1 per cent of the population.’

The sisters say the sculpture will help other families with unusual set-ups feel welcome in Birmingham.

The artwork took four years to complete after artist Gillian Wearing invited members of the public to nominate local families

The family was chosen for their closeness, said Wearing, who took inspiration from carrying out a similar project in Italy

One of the sisters, who are both single, is depicted as pregnant. Hundreds of families were nominated as part of the project

The sculpture is designed to celebrate 'the unsung and everyday' elements of Birmingham city life according to organisers

After receiving nominations and suggestions for a variety of family structures the artist and a panel of judges selected the Jones family

Speaking of the suggestions, one organiser said while a nuclear family was the most traditional, it is no longer the norm in Birmingham

The sisters and their brothers, Robin, 25, and Jay, 23, were raised by their mother, Karen Jones, a single parent, in a council house

The plaque on the sculpture, which describes those featured in the work of art

BIRMINGHAM-BORN ARTIST GILLIAN WEARING OBE Gillian Wearing was born in Birmingham in 1963. The artist shot to fame in the 1990s with a collection of photographs she had taken of strangers in the street, holding up signs with 'confessions' written on them. Speaking of the project, Wearing said she had been inspired by the British tendency to bottle up emotion and not reveal secrets. In 1997 she won the Turner Prize for 60 Minutes Silence, a film of uniformed police officers sitting together. Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2007. Advertisement

Roma, 29, mother of four-year-old Kyan, and Emma, 27, mother of Shaye, five, and Isaac, said they have experienced difficult times together and have ‘always been there for each other’.

Roma, an outreach worker for a charity, said: ‘We were interested in representing women, representing single parents and also mixed race people, which are such a part of Birmingham. Because there isn’t an adult male... we thought that would be an issue and that’s why possibly we wouldn’t be chosen.’

She added: ‘There’s always the expectation that in future we might be a complete family because perhaps there will be a male there. But I don’t see it like that. We’re women, we support each other and obviously we’ve got the males there – our sons. Potentially they are going to be fathers in the future.’

The sisters and their brothers, Robin, 25, and Jay, 23, were raised by their mother, Karen Jones, a single parent, in a council house in Birmingham.

Neighbours described the four siblings as ‘polite and well-brought up’, but said their mother, Miss Jones, was somewhat aloof. One couple who knew the family well said: ‘Karen never used to let anybody in the house. The two daughters would visit with their children almost daily. Occasionally, one of the women would drive round with her boyfriend. But while the daughter went in to see Karen, the boyfriend would always stay in the car.’

Another neighbour, who also declined to be identified, said: ‘The sisters both seem to be devoted parents raising happy and well-rounded children. But Birmingham has tried hard in recent years to position itself in a positive light and this statue sends the wrong message. This is the UK’s second city, and while it is diverse, I don’t know of any modern family made up of two single mothers who are also sisters.’

Karen Jones’s mother Myra Chipman, 70, who also lives in Birmingham, said: ‘I’m proud that my granddaughters have been chosen as the faces of Birmingham. They are lovely girls who have been raised the right way.’

Miss Wearing, who won the Turner Prize in 1997 and is the partner of artist Michael Landy, said: ‘A nuclear family is one reality but it is one of many and this work celebrates the idea that what constitutes a family should not be fixed.’

Her previous statue of a family stands in Trento, Italy.