Research the work of Cornelia Parker.  Make notes in your own words in response to the following:

What do you think Parker is trying to do in her piece Poison and Antidote Drawing (2010)?

Poison and Antidote Drawing is created using rattlesnake venom and black ink, anti-venom and white ink.  Parker often uses bits of her subject to make her art work.  Why do you think she does this?

‘ I’ve made poison and antidote drawings using snake venom from a rattlesnake farm in Texas mixed with black ink, and anti-venom with white ink, to make Rorschach blots.  The resulting drawings are a combination of ‘good and evil’.’ (Maslen and Southern, 2014:54)

She goes on to say ‘For me the concious part of making a drawing is deciding on a process, what the process then releases is something else.’

I think she has tried to create more than just a representation of an object, but instead the drawing is the object.  The title ‘Good and Evil’ itself conjures up a lot of ideas and the use of black and white ink emphasises this.  The positive and negative concepts are polar opposites of each other.

How do you think it feels to stand in the presence of art works that are constructed from original objects  of great cultural significance?  How does that differ from, say, standing in front of a painting of the same object?

Initially I thought it was a little self-indulgent.  I wonder if a drawing or painting should be a successful piece of art in its own right without there having to be an explanation of the process or of materials used.  I’ve pondered over this and decided the media and materials can give an art work a deeper meaning, which engages the viewer’s imagination and empowers and strengthens the artwork itself.

Bibliography

Maslen Mick and Southern Jack

(2014)

Drawing Projects; and exploration of the language of drawing

London

Black Dog Publishing