Helen Chadwick
Piss Flowers, 1991–1992 (2006)
Bronze, cellulose lacquer, in twelve parts
Each approx: 70 × 65 × 65 cm
Helen Chadwick’s Piss Flowers is a series of twelve sculptures that appear like white flowers in the landscape, cast in bronze before being enamelled, made by her and her partner urinating in the snow during a stay in Canada. The flower is made by casting the cavities left behind by their warm urine. The centre of the flowers — the pistils and anthers, which are the female and male reproductive elements of the plant — have been created by Chadwick’s urine. The shallower but more spread-out urination from her male partner has created the outlines, or petals.
The Piss Flowers are as repulsive as they are beautiful. Whilst being a natural bodily function, urination largely remains a topic of taboo. Public urination in particular goes against social decorum and most will remember being told to steer well clear from ‘yellow snow’. By being made into bronze flowers sculptures Chadwick is blurring the line between public and private, natural and unnatural.
