Cornelia O’Donovan was born in 1981, and trained at the Royal College of Art, London. 

O'Donovan plays with old folklore and poetry, but in a loose and dreamlike way. She draws particularly on tales native to the British Isles, and especially Celtic poetry and myth – from the tale of Prince Llewellyn’s grief at the sacrifice of his greyhound Gellert, to the figurative ballads of Ellen O’Leary and lines from WB Yeats.