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" My parents were always doubtful about my making a living as an artist. Even when I was up for the Turner Prize, my mum suggested I apply for a curator's job. "

Cornelia Parker

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" I don't particularly look at other artists when I'm working. But references do come into my work intuitively. "

Cornelia Parker

" I didn't really know what I was looking at when I first came across Man Ray's 'Dust Breeding,' his photograph of a work by Marcel Duchamp called 'Large Glass.' It looked like an aerial photograph or a view through a microscope. "

Cornelia Parker

" I feel our relationship to life, to the rest of the world, is very tenuous. It feels fleeting. "

Cornelia Parker

" I'm from a working-class background - I had free school meals all my life and then spent six years in art school. "

Cornelia Parker

" I like drawing from all kinds of territories in art. "

Cornelia Parker

" I was my father's sidekick, in a way. He was a very dominant, forceful character. "

Cornelia Parker

" Living in a warehouse is great - but after a while, you just want a garden. "

Cornelia Parker

" My work has threads of ideas from all over the place. I try to crystallise them in something simple and direct that the viewer can then take where they want. "

Cornelia Parker

" I can consciously say I like squashing things because I saw 'Tom and Jerry' films or Charlie Chaplin in 'Modern Times.' That's true. "

Cornelia Parker

" I'm not very party-political, really; I am more strategic than that. "

Cornelia Parker

" What was the most important thing I learned from Chomsky? That capitalism compels us to work ourselves to death in order to stuff our houses with things we don't need. Perhaps this is one thing art can do: create a new aesthetic, one of austerity. "

Cornelia Parker

" You don't have to have angst to be an artist, but it's grist to the mill. If you want to explore the whole emotional spectrum in your work, it helps to have experienced intense emotions. "

Cornelia Parker

" Art and creativity are crucial, whether you're a mathematician, a scientist, or an artist. "

Cornelia Parker

" I was selling bric-a-brac in Portobello and Camden Market. I love objects. But I was embarrassed by the idea of collecting, so I began using these things in my art. "

Cornelia Parker

" My father wanted a boy badly and didn't get one, so I was happy to be the surrogate boy. I was very strong, always doing manual labour. "

Cornelia Parker

" The idea of going off to an office every day and 'putting on my art hat' doesn't appeal. "

Cornelia Parker

" If I was prime minister, I would declare a state of emergency on climate change. "

Cornelia Parker

" Artists and scientists both think outside the box. They've got to come with genius experiments or ideas to expose the most interesting phenomena. "

Cornelia Parker

" A lot of my stuff just wasn't saleable. I still don't do private or corporate commissions. It becomes like interior design. I don't enjoy it. The process makes me feel physically sick. "

Cornelia Parker

" Traditional conceptual art is very dry. "

Cornelia Parker

" Even though people think I am more of a conceptual artist, I am actually very intuitive. For me, it is still a matter of allowing things to naturally rise to the top of my mental pile, and then I make them. "

Cornelia Parker

" Artists and scientists are very close. They always have been, but I think we've just been divided out over the last few centuries into specialisms. Leonardo da Vinci was drawing helicopters and all kinds of things. We're artificially divided. I think we're closer than we think we are. "

Cornelia Parker

" I do think there is a link between the accidental art the sciences produce and the deliberate art the artist creates, but I can't help feeling that the innocence of the accidental art of science has a power and curious beauty that artists are hard-pressed to match. "

Cornelia Parker

" Art historical reference is like learning to drive a car - you always know how to drive even though you're not analysing how. "

Cornelia Parker

" I am 5ft 10in. I got my height from my dad, who was very rangy. I like being tall. "

Cornelia Parker

" I don't read the art mags. I read the newspapers. "

Cornelia Parker

" After leaving college, I was in a show called Sculpture by Women where I was asked to talk about my history of victimisation in art, and I genuinely didn't think I had been victimised. Although I obviously believe in a lot of the feminist aspirations, I was wary about being dragged down by the politics of it. "

Cornelia Parker

" At my degree show, someone said, 'It's nice, but it's very feminine.' I said, thank you, taking it as a compliment, but they obviously meant it as an insult. "

Cornelia Parker

" I think it's quite obvious my work is made by a woman, because I have never wanted to make anything that is not ephemeral. But I definitely want to be thought of as an artist first. "

Cornelia Parker

" If I'm not doing the work I want, I usually suffer a psychological allergic reaction and get ill. "

Cornelia Parker