Royal Academician Cornelia Parker works in a range of mediums including photography, sculpture, printmaking and site-specific installations. Her interest in the fragility of existence is exemplified in her impactful ‘exploding’ works where she flattens or shatters objects ranging from a metal tea set to a wooden garden shed and then hangs them from the ceiling in pieces – dramatically transforming their appearance.

Parker’s interest in the reconfiguration of ordinary objects is continued in a recent series of monochromatic polymer gravure etchings of which this is one. In the making of these works, Parker places old crystal wine glasses onto a metal plate coated with light sensitive material. The plate is then exposed to UV light directly from above, creating an etched surface full of variation of tone and shadow (depending on the thickness of the different parts of each glass). The resulting impressions are abstracted, reminiscent of unidentifiable landscapes, at once unsettling and beautiful. 

Parker's work is held in many collections worldwide including Tate, London; British Council, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fundacio La Caixa, Barcelona; Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Yale Centre for British Art, Connecticut. She has collaborated with institutions such as HM Customs & Excise, Royal Armouries, Madame Tussauds, Victoria & Albert Museum, and recently, the Royal Academy of Arts on public artworks. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1997 and made an OBE in 2010. Parker lives and works in London.