Research // Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Ann Parker is an English sculptor and installation artist.

Parker is best known for large-scale installations such as Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991), for which she had a garden shed blown up by the British Army and suspended the fragments as if suspending the explosion process in time. In the centre was a light which cast the shadows of the wood dramatically on the walls of the room.

Parker's compelling transformations of familiar, everyday objects investigate the nature of matter, test physical properties and play on private and public meaning and value. Using materials that have a history loaded with association, a feather from Sigmund Freud's pillow for example, Parker has employed numerous methods of exploration- suspending, exploding, crushing, stretching objects and even language through her titles.

I like her work as it's not something you'd expect. She's almost changing your perception on how you see ordinary things (the garden shed). To me it's more of a metaphor of everyday life, of how if we changed our perception on things we saw in everyday life then everything would become art.