Helen Chadwick - Definition and Overview

Helen Chadwick (1953 - March 15, 1996) was a British artist.

Chadwick studied at Brighton Polytechnic and then at the Chelsea School of Art.

She has often been identified as a feminist, with several of her works addressing the role and image of woman in society.

Her work often used organic materials, such as meat, flowers and chocolate. She is perhaps most famous for Piss Flowers (1991-92), bronze sculptures cast from patterns made in the snow by her urinating there.

Earlier works include Viral Landscapes, a series of photographs from the late 1980s where blotches (actually magnified images of cells from her body) are superimposed over landscapes, and Meat Abstracts (1989) large photographs of meat juxtaposed with leather and fabric.

Among her last works are a series of photographs of dead human embryos. Ten of her works, including Cyclops Cameo and Opal, were destroyed in the May 2004 fire at the Momart warehouse in London.

Chadwick was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1987. She died in 1996 from a heart attack.

External link

• An audio interview with Chadwick from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/chadwickh1.shtml)
• The Guardian on Chadwick's self-portrait Vanitas II, Helen Chadwick (1986) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/portrait/story/0,11109,740350,00.html)