Whilst we are on the subject of piss I would like to mention how the famous work Piss Christ influenced me as a student though not nearly as much as Helen Chadwicks' Piss Flowers. One of the first exhibitions that revivded my interest in fine art was Helen Chadwicks Efluvia. Even now, looking back at the catalogue still inspires me. By chance I met Helen before her untimely death. I had followed her work. I saw her plywood screenprint 3d work in Oxford but a chance visit to Witley Court in Herefordshire found her clearing water from her carpet work, I think entitled Rachel. I offered to help and we cleared away the rainwater damage together. To me, she remains a seriously important artist. At the time it must have been just prior to the YBA explosion.
Her Piss Flowers, casts of the space made in snow by her and her male collaborator in bronze inverted percieved sexual empowerment, the female piss being hotter, deeper creating a far more magnificent cast than the wind cooled penis piss of the male. These negative spaces, cast in bronze, painted white and inverted had a powerfull effect on me. Subsequent negative space casts that followed such as Rachel Whitereads house never heald a fraction of thier power.
If thier is a single artist I would put forward for serious reavaluation it would be Helen.
Despite her timing, pre YBA, post feminist, I never felt her work could be neutred by gender politics, as so many critics have tried to. She was female and made work from her own perspective. To tangle it up in the gender battles of others serves only to diminish her works power. Any artist only can speak from their perspective and to belittle her work, largely by male critics is missing the point.
She is certainly one of the best artists whose lifespan mine has crossed.
