Lot 368: HELEN CHADWICK

1953-1996
EGO GEOMETRIA SUM, STATUE - 15 TO 30 YEARS

160.2 by 46 by 46cm.; 63 1/8 by 18 1/8 by 18 1/8 in.

photographic emulsion on plywood

Executed in 1983.

EXHIBITED

Venice, XLI Biennale Internazionale d'Arte, 1984
Belfast, Art & Research Exchange; Portsmouth, Aspex Gallery; London, Riverside Studios, Ego Geometria Sum, 1983-1985

LITERATURE

Mark Holborn, Ed., Enfleshings, Helen Chadwick, London 1989, pp. 12 & 24, illustrated twice in colour

NOTE

The first female artist to be short-listed for the Turner Prize, Helen Chadwick was one of the founders of British art as we know it today. She began making her name in the early '80s when Contemporary art had little public profile in Britain, but by the time of her sudden death in the mid-90s, the idea of Young British Art had become a national as well as international talking point.

Frequently choosing to depict herself in her work, in part to challenge stereotyped ideas of the human body, gender, and sexuality, 'Ego Geometria Sum' (I Am Geometry), 1982-84, was her first body of work to earn widespread public attention. An autobiographical series consisting of ten schematic plywood reductions of everyday objects that symbolised her journey from a premature birth in 1953 to adulthood - an incubator, a font, a pram, a wigwam, a piano etc. - each form is covered with photographic images from her life revealing the twists and turns of her imagination as well as many latent meanings. The present work is the largest and culminating piece in the series and covers the mature period in her life from the ages of 15 to 30. Its height is determined by the artist's own, and on two sides her nude form appears pressed up against its plywood walls. The other two sides show the front door to her house in London and an androgynous toy troll; a presence which acts as both a reminder of the 'inner child' in adulthood and of a loss of innocence through age. As with the earlier works in this series, the contrary assortment of overlaid personal images adds sensuous meaning to the rigid geometry of the box whilst the artist's own poses express a yearning to conform to it. Leonardo, who inscribed his ideal male body in the overlapping figures of the circle and square, would undoubtedly have been pleased to have seen such a statement. In a follow-up sequence of photographs, 'Ego Geometria Sum: The Labours', 1986, (see fig. 1) Chadwick, again unclothed but with her face always hidden, is shown grappling with the objects, often uneasily pitted against their cumbersome bulk.

Expressing the physical basis and transience of experience, Chadwick's irreverent disregard for tradition with her choices of subject and material were hugely influential on an emerging generation of British artists. Heralding the likes of Sarah Lucas, Tracy Emin and Sam Taylor Wood, in their elegant yet unconventional forms, 'Ego Geometria Sum' set the foundations from which the vibrant British art scene that we know today grew.

"Thirty years are reduced to ten geometric solids, exactly determined by what took place at a particular point in time. These 'accidents of matter' constitute the past, the collisions between my body as a growing child and a succession of everyday cultural objects. Essentially they are that body, being equal in volume but recomposed under strict causal laws, flesh into form. Their surfaces, simultaneously image and material, are impregnated with the photographic impression of each physical encounter." Helen Chadwick, quoted in

Mark Holborn, Ed., Enfleshings, Helen Chadwick, 1989)