By: Bryan Li

Cornelia Parker’s violent works of art incorporates a myriad of destructive substances such as explosives and snake venom.

BBC says that Cornelia Parker had an abusive father as a little girl, and that she used to place coins on train tracks and see them violently transformed as a train came and crushed it. This was likely the start of her violent making of art. Parker has created many unique works of art by harnessing the power of things like explosives and steamrollers.

Even though her brutal methods seem like a strange new approach to art, they are in fact not strange or new at all. According to BBC, Stone Age artists crushed and burned animal skeletons to produce the black ink used to make cave drawings. In “The Book of Art”, there are over 200 references to the “crushing, boiling, grinding, pounding, beating, and squeezing” needed to make art.

Parker has a flair for adding meaning to the original props used in her works of art. As BBC says, by smashing and damaging the objects, she somehow manages to add more meaning and significance to the objects.

BBC claims that her final piece, Island, is one such example. Island is a greenhouse with chalk-stained windows, floor tiles from the British Houses of Parliament, and a flashing light that fades and strengthens as though it’s breathing. BBC also claims that this dilapidated greenhouse symbolizes climate change and cultural isolation.