“When asked what he considered was the greatest act of heroism he knew, Mahatma Gandhi replied that it the one performed by the mother who woke up in the middle of the night to find that her baby had wet the mattress they were sharing, and who exchanged places to ensure that the baby slept in the dry for the rest of the night.”
Texts
Themes:
acting alchemy animation artists community artists live/ work space asylum baby bodily fluids body Brockhall Village charts claustrophobia dada disconcerting emotions futurism games grids heroism home hospital human condition humour hysteria icon identity Inebriated Women isolation m(other) madness memory metaphor motherhood mutalism painting performance performative play pregnancy psychological puppetry sanctuary Scenes from the Asylum Wall sculpture sexuality 
Mini Series exhibition text by Jenna Collins, June 2006
“Helen has a sophisticated relationship to video exploiting its potential to create experience directly, resulting in a raw aesthetic that exposes the painters approach to mark making. With a bizarre and dark sense of humour, Helen makes use of the objects that furnish her life to explore the psychological, challenging hierarchies and power relations as a woman, as a mother, as a female artist with children.”
Does anyone still believe in ghosts?, Flux Magazine, by Jonnathan Shaw June 1995
“No one seems to care about ghosts anymore, they are nonsense, relegated to dubious folklore and kiddies books. Problem is that spooks, spectres, phantoms and phantasms not only exist but haunt in scary abundance a disused Victorian mental asylum in Brockhall Village, where a cabal of artists are summoning the sprites and living amongst them.”
Review of My House and Your House, The Big Issue, May 1995
“Its a chicken and egg situation”says Michael Mayhew of Furnace Performance Art Company. “Which comes first? The gallery where art is displayed or the space in which the art is made in the first place?”