By: Anthony Zhang

Artists use different types of tools for their pieces. Some use brushes, some use their fingers, but artist Cornelia Parker uses steamrollers. She smashes and compacts objects to represent her artistic visions.

Her instinct to use violence to produce art is rooted in her childhood. In the 1960s, Parker would place coins on train tracks and watch them get deformed as trains trampled them. For a child who had to muck out stables and milk cows and had no exposure to any major violence, her love for destruction was unforeseen. To Parker, a penny wasn’t trampled, an imaginative curve had sparked.

“Since the late 1980s, Parker has produced some of the most arresting works in contemporary art by harnessing everything from plastic explosives to steamrollers, snake venom to the very blade of the guillotine that lopped off the head of Marie Antoinette,” reported journalist Kelly Grovier.

Parker’s love for destruction with steamrollers is shown the best in “Thirty Pieces of Silver”. It consisted of over 1000 silver-plated objects. Teapots, trombones, baby spoons, and lots of other silver objects were then squashed by a steamroller until they were completely flat. Then, Parker grabbed some string and assembled the objects to make it seem like they were floating.

“Everything just sort of weaves together,” said Cornelia Parker. “In the gallery, the ruined objects are ghostly, levitating just above the floor, waiting to be reassessed in the light of their transformation.” Because of the biblical reference of the title, the meaning alludes to money, betrayal, death, and resurrection. In the light of the silver objects, some will glow, some will stay the same, and some will fall off creating the messages.

She doesn’t just use steamrollers, she uses hammers and bombs. In her masterpiece “Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View”, it had suspended invisible filaments of blown up garden shed parts. In the middle, there were glaring light bulbs that illuminated the parts showing an incredible silhouette.

“I’ve always liked nocturnes. The first time I really used lights was my exploded shed. I wanted to make a work with a light source. It’s linked to explosion[s] so that’s where the light first appeared,” said Parker.

Link:https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220621-cornelia-parker-the-artist-who-likes-to-blow-things-up