SOPHIE CORYNDON

Having grown up immersed in the world of craft alongside her father, a highly regarded master furniture maker and restorer, the English artist Sophie Coryndon is drawn to all forms of craftsmanship, especially dying crafts. She possesses mastery of a dizzyingly wide range of skills, from woodwork and bronze casting to painting and sculpture. Likewise, she mines a broad range of inspiration from medieval illuminated manuscripts, renaissance altar-pieces, historical ornament, cabinets of curiosity, and mythology. She’s like a magpie collecting bits of beauty, which she weaves into her art. Her pieces pay homage to nature, particularly toits intricate and intelligent patterns. She will often blow up the scale in her work to draw outa sense of wonder in the enchantments found in the natural world through close observation. But, while Coryndon imagines herself standing on the shoulders of all the craftsmen who came before her, she is always reimagining old techniques and materials, devising new ways to use them, and experimenting with modern ones.