Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker was born 14th July 1956 in Chesire, UK. She is an English sculptor who specialises in the field of installation art. She is best known for large scale installations such as the 'Cold Dark Matter'.

The image to the left shows one of her famous installations named 'An Exploded View' 1991. It shows a shed being blown up by the British army. The fragments from the annihilated shed have been collected by the artist and re-assembled into an installation.

My first impressions of this artwork was positive due to the lighting effect that the installation gave out.
I'm very attracted towards this piece because it's very creative and I love when things blow up. The way it's been reconstructed doesn't look as random as it seems. There is balance in this installation despite it being blown up and put back together.

If something symmetrical gets crushed into pieces, you usually wouldn't be able to get the same shape again, but this installation is completely destroyed yet it still resembles a shed in some strange way.
One of her quotes states: "I resurrect things that have been killed off... My work is about the potential of materials - even when it looks like they've lost all possibilities". When looking at the installations and then back at the quote, you see how the killed off shed still looks significant and you start to see all the material it was made off bit by bit. If you look closely, you can see other materials than wood. I can see cloth, metal rods, a bucket, straw, small everyday objects, a pan and other small items too small to specify.

When I look at the artwork, it gets me into a happy mood. It's a feeling you get when you see a loud explosion of a firework outside your window. The artist created this mood by inserting a light in the centre of the installation. The light goes through each object in the piece and leaves the shadow in the wall and the ground. Similar to a firework, it gives a flash and all the objects around you create a shadow from the explosion. This installation however keeps this feeling all the time rather than a brief moment.

With all the artists so far, Cornelia Parker created the most eye-catching art. I really like it because I have an obsession on explosions and blowing stuff up. I like fireworks and this installation reminds me of a forever lasting firework which doesn't loose it's colors after the explosion.

Putting this installation together must have been extremely difficult as there are hundreds if not, thousands of small pieced of the shed that had to be reassembled. The artist also had to consider the balance of where to put the largest objects and where to focus the little ones.
I would like to know what exactly did the artist used to blow up the shed, but other than that the media used in this artwork is the whole shed and whats inside of it.

I think the artist wanted to show the potential of the material just like the quote before has stated.

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My installation will be based mainly off this artists technique. What I want to do is get some of my objects in the box file and break them into small parts. Similarly to the artist, I want to hang them down on strings closely together so that you can see the way they broke apart. For the objects I don't break, I want to make  a cast which links back to an artist Valerie Jolly who did paper casts. I will cast my objects and also hang them down on strings. Since it's paper and I'm going to work with light, I think that this combination will produce a very nice effect and make my installation into a successful piece of art.