An artist is angry after a council ordered one of her works to be removed from a public gallery because it feared the piece would offend visitors.

Karen Laycock accused Lewes District Council of insulting viewers' intelligence by censoring her work, which contains swear words, at the After Caro exhibition at Thebes Gallery in Lewes.

The Heroes And Villains piece at the centre of the controversy, a collage of graffiti slogans and words from around Brighton and Hove, was covered up after the exhibition opened on Friday.

Council chief executive John Crawford was called in by worried gallery staff to inspect the piece. Another piece causing concern, a recording of a woman crying, was also examined.

Mr Crawford told Karen Laycock, who created Heroes and Villains, that Lewes was not "ready" for it and ordered her to remove it from the council-owned gallery yesterday.

Miss Laycock, from Hollingbury, Brighton, said: "They covered it up with paper but everyone was looking underneath. They were being really supportive. This is supposed to be a contemporary art display but the first thing they do is close down something they don't like.

"The chief executive said it was a publicly-funded gallery and it was not the right time for the piece in Lewes but maybe it would be all right in five years. They were worried about complaints about the language."

Miss Laycock travelled around the city writing down graffiti, which was often mis-spelt, scrawled over benches or walls.

They range from sexual obscenities to "Free Bouncing Doughnut", "I love Chris", "I hate myself, I whant to die by Chris C.", "It's time to go veggie" and "I'm a late night prostachute".

The council said the piece went against its aims of making art accessible to a wide range of people, including youngsters.

Miss Laycock said: "I think people should be allowed to make up their own minds. This is insulting their intelligence. Art should be challenging, unless you want Lewes just to be full of watercolours. Heroes and Villains is about people you would rather forget, people who are not aware of how they can change their lives.

"People who are opposing it are from privileged backgrounds and perhaps they don't want to be confronted with it."

Lewes is no stranger to censorship. In 1917, it lost Rodin's sculpture, The Kiss, after calls for it to be removed from the town hall on the grounds it was pornographic. It was left in the stableblock, which is now Thebes Gallery, for 17 years before being sold to the Tate Gallery.

Artist Susan Diab was told her recording of a woman crying, being broadcast in council gardens, may also be removed if there were complaints.

Council staff complained the recording sounded disturbingly like a child crying in the bushes.

Ms Diab believed staff at the Thebes Gallery were worried they would lose funding if the council disapproved of work.

She said: "I think the council is being hypocritical. Artists take their responsibility towards the public very seriously and to have something removed you spent a lot of time thinking about and creating is an affront."

A Lewes District Council spokeswoman admitted not everyone would agree with the decision to ban the graffiti piece.

She said: "It is a judgement and some people will agree, some people won't. The art directors and the chief executive felt it wasn't suitable for what we are trying to do, in terms of promoting art for people who wouldn't normally visit galleries, particularly children and people who find art inaccessible.

"There is an argument about censorship. But we are not trying to be cutting edge. It doesn't mean it is bad art, it is just not appropriate for this place."