Like a Virgin (1994) is an ink etching of a cockroach, a creature commonly associated with squalor and filth. Closer inspection of the insect reveals a resemblance to the male phallus, normally associated with virility and dominance yet here relegated to the level of a mere bug. The paper has also been blind embossed with the outline of a woman's hips, in which the cockroach has been strategically placed in the centre as if upon entry. The title 'Like a Virgin' refers to female cockroaches who do not need a mate to reproduce, hence experiencing virgin birth and are devoid of the threat of extinction.

British artist Helen CHADWICK (1953 - 1996) embraced the sensuous aspects of the natural world, breaking taboos of the ‘normal’ and ‘traditional’. Considered a ‘mother’ to the YBAs through her teaching posts at the Royal College of Art, Chelsea School of Art and the London Institute, her experiments with material were innovative and unconventional and captured a world in a state of flux. Aesthetic beauty created out of an alliance of unconventional, often "vile", materials is what typified her work.

She was one of the first women artists to be nominated for the Turner Prize in 1987. Chadwick’s 1986 exhibition ‘Of Mutability’, which opened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, is considered a seminal point in the breakthrough of the YBA movement.