Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Ann Parker OBE, RA (born 1956) is an English sculptor and installation artist.

Life and career

Parker studied at the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design (1974–75) and Wolverhampton Polytechnic (1975–78). She received her MFA from Reading University in 1982 and honorary doctorates from the University of Wolverhampton in 2000, the University of Birmingham (2005) and the University of Gloucestershire (2008). In 1997, Cornelia Parker was shortlisted for the Turner Prize along with Christine Borland, Angela Bulloch, and Gillian Wearing (who won the prize). Parker is married, has one daughter, and lives and works in London. Parker's mother is German and was in the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, and was then a prisoner of war for a couple of years after the war. Her British grandfather fought in the trenches in the First World War.

Work

Parker is best known for large-scale installations such as Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991) – first shown at the Chisenhale Gallery in Bow, East London – 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. This inspired an orchestral composition of the same name by Joo Yeon Sir.