Cordelia John was born into the arts. Her mother a Shakespearean Actress and her father though a medical man, a Pathologist and Morbid Anatomist at St Thomas’s in London, also a keen enthusiast in literature, music and the performing and visual arts. These values along with a childhood in the kindly hills of Surrey led to a keen relationship with nature, an ever growing devotion to the beloved countryside of her home and nurtured a passionate aesthetically aware soul that thrived on beauty.

Cordelia married young, to the successful commercial artist, David Winter, who she assisted along side working as the main model and at times studio assistant to her mother in law, the famous British sculptor Faith Winter. The experience of both these roles in her late teens, furnished her with unique opportunities. This steep learning curve was to take yet another leap forward when, after a long visit staying with her sister in New York, the exuberant excitement of discovering the world of modern art – previously her contact had been with the more classical fields – Cordelia returned to embark on a two year full time course of intensive study on History of Art. This only added fervour to an already fast growing hunger for more knowledge in the general area of the arts. Though further advanced study was booked and about to commence, a change in circumstance in her personal life, with the marriage failing, meant a keen turn away from the happy indulgence of these proposed studies. Now a young single mother with two children and the daily support gone, a career change was needed to encompass this altered lifestyle.

The next decade saw extreme training in Teaching, Management and Business at degree levels, running and owning a small independent school and working broadly on endless new initiatives for youth from 3–18 yrs. But this was not a barren period for Cordelia’s relationship with the arts; she grew as an avid young collector of contemporary British, Australian and Cuban work, with a specialised interest in Australian Aboriginal painting.

This became her greatest passion in life and led to an irrepressible desire to turn it into her future career. After ten years in education, the school was sold to fund specialist, extensive study and to launch a new career in the world of art. This started with a year’s post-grad course on Modern and Contemporary Art at the highly respected international establishment of Christies Education in London. Having successfully obtained a place on the course, Cordelia’s skills endlessly rose to meet the high demands and challenges of this quite outstanding opportunity, an opportunity that gave rise to massive personal and professional development. That year was to totally change her; empowered by an unstoppable awakened mind she left Christies with a Distinction, an invitation to lecture there and a network of contacts throughout the London Art World.

It seemed very fitting that her first project to follow was with Brighton University, on the planning of a major Australian Aboriginal Exhibition. Then Cordelia’s career led her back to London and the energetic and exciting Fitzrovia based gallery of the celebrated Rebecca Hossack, a leading specialist in Aboriginal work and a woman with unique vision, recognising and representing quite outstanding contemporary artists from all over the world. Rebecca had been a friend and mentor for some years previously, and Cordelia a regular customer of the gallery since the early 1990s. Cordelia’s role here was both broad and creative, for her this was a very exhilarating period indeed. The Hossack gallery offered a scope of glittering opportunity, and so with passion, abundant enthusiasm and much hard work, she flourished, living to the full every moment. The gallery also represented the Yorkshire artist David Farrer, and it was when working there that Cordelia met this extraordinary contemporary sculptor, whose work she had admired for years; this was a meeting of profound importance, and their connection was immediate! Despite the geographical divide, a deep love blossomed rapidly and within months they were united permanently. This love was not just to shape her personal life, but reshape her professional career as well, furnishing her with the possibility of giving birth to a more physically creative voice, with hands on involvement on the sculpture’s making, not just the many roles of her extensive business input.

The demands of David Farrer Sculpture grew, it was a struggle to combine it with another challenging post, as Cordelia was by then manager of Piano Nobile Fine Paintings, a gallery in Holland Park that dealt in Modern British works and had the privilege of representing a handful of leading contemporary artists.

A bold decision was made and Cordelia committed herself in September 2003 to the full time development of David Farrer Sculpture, bringing to it a lifetime of experience in business and the arts. For the next few years, demanding days were happily packed with the endless task of extensive management, marketing, PR, providing a constant flow of exciting new initiatives, putting together and running workshops and avidly assisting in the making of sculpture on a daily basis, with studio time increasingly dominating her activities.

At the start of 2006, having collected many precious and personal ideas Cordelia began to also focus on her own work. Playing with a medium she had spent the last 3 years so intimately getting to know and marrying this with very individual interests such as tribal and aboriginal art. Exploring ideas of magic, ceremony and iconic symbols and pulling them into the present day. The Masks were large relief sculptures, carefully created to act as beautiful blessings for the home, aesthetically rich and bursting with magical imagination. Rapidly a desire to learn more was fuelled by a wish to bring other mediums to the sculpture, for headdresses, final skins and crafted adornment. Having had the great privilege to be a part time tutor at the unique establishment West Dean College in Sussex for over 3 years, Cordelia then became the student there also, intensively studying, textiles, printmaking and other mediums, initially with a wish to incorporate these skills in the masks. The textiles and printmaking quickly became interests in their own right. So through sculpture, mixed media, textiles, prints, the written word and performance, Cordelia strives to explore and celebrate the sacred in our everyday life and thus reconnect herself and others with ancient mysteries and all the magic and wonder that this remarkable world has to offer.

November 2007