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Completed and installed in 1987, West and North is one of the most prominent public works of art at the University of Alberta. The expansive 6,500-square foot mural is composed of 202 sheets of acrylic painted Crezone plywood that is mounted on galvanized metal, which are bolted to the concrete wall.

Yates graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1951 and taught at the University of Alberta from 1954 until his retirement in 1989.

In the early 1970s, Yates began to resolve the various directions his art had taken, such as abstraction, realism and symbolism. The purchase of a 160-acre parcel of land west of Edmonton, which he used as a "land studio," led him to focus on his relationship with the landscape of the Canadian west.

The resulting series of paintings, known as “Landspaces”, enabled Yates to fully realize the spatial implications of the land and sky. The series led the artist to create large-scale works, such as West and North. This large-scale outdoor mural, which is mounted on the Education Building, breaks away from the confines of a framed canvas and explores the expansive possibilities of multiple panels.