Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker is a contemporary British artist working in mediums that range from sculpture, installation, and works on paper, to photographs composed out of manipulated found objects and images. Uing in a wide variety of media, Parker’s work frequently features destructive amalgamations of household objects that have been layered, broken, or repurposed into new structures. 

She has flattened silver tea sets and other objects with a steamroller and hung them from the ceiling; and cast sidewalk cracks in bronze to create evocative, minimalist sculptures. Among her best-known works is Cold Dark Matter for which she blew up a garden shed, whose fragmented pieces were displayed suspended and dramatically lit from within. 

Her work is “constantly unstable, in flux; leant against a wall, hovering, or so fragile it might collapse,” as Parker describes it. “It is a universal condition, that of vulnerability. We don’t have solid, fixed lives; we’re consistently dealing with what life throws at us.” Parker describes her work as both darkly humorous and ironic, and cites Marcel Duchamp as a source of inspiration.