Chadwick returns - in a digital Eden

PREVIOUSLY unseen work produced by Helen Chadwick, the British artist who died suddenly last March, will be visible on a computer near you from the end of this month - on a CD-ROM.

The work, including an installation of a pyramid of flowers covered in melted wax, was produced by Chadwick specially for the singer Peter Gabriel's second CD-ROM, called Eve.

Ironically, it is likely to reach a far bigger audience in this form - as digitised pictures incorporated into Gabriel's latest project - than any of her other work while she was alive. Gabriel's first CD-ROM, Xplora, has sold 200,000 copies since 1994, more than any other music-based CD- ROM.

Chadwick was famous for a number of works, including Effluvia, her 1994 Serpentine Gallery exhibition featuring a chocolate fountain, and Piss Flowers - a cast of the shape made by urinating into snow.

In an interview recorded before her death, Chadwick explains that the idea of the pyramid of flowers (which she built in the gardens of Gabriel's recording studios near Bath) came because "We think of gardens as being things of nature, but they aren't; they're highly artificial." The pyramid of white blooms, which then have red wax poured over them, emphasise this.

Gabriel says: "I saw Helen's show at the Serpentine Gallery, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I ended up working quite a lot with her in Eve."

The concept of Eve is to explore the idea of relationships, a concept which increasingly fascinates Gabriel. It begins with the separation of a single entity into two, and their forced separation and expulsion from a "garden of Eden".

Gabriel explains, "You have to help the wanderer find his mate; the main drive is to find your other half and merge into a whole, to realise paradise for a second time."