John Farmelo was born in Woolwich, London and lived nearby until his family moved to West Sussex. He has been interested in drawing and painting as long as he can remember and his working life has been divided between teaching and painting. After studying English in Newcastle he trained as a teacher at The London Institute of Education and then taught English for two years in Tower Hamlets.

In 1980 he moved to Denmark to work for a year as a guest teacher in the Danish state school system and ended up living there for more than seven years. His work allowed him to explore the country and get to know its people, its art and culture and its landscape, all of which he came to love. During this time he spent 6 months at Herning Højskole studying painting and graphics. He subsequently  became interested in painting on textiles; a very rewarding medium to use and teach as it offers a freedom of application unlike any other.

He moved back to live on the south coast of England  to work as a painter and a teacher. Since then, he has divided his time between making and exhibiting his work, teaching in schools and running numerous workshops on painted textiles in schools and in residential course centres such as West Dean, Earnley Concourse and Dillington House. He has also run workshops for both adults and children, around the world, from France to as far away as China. 

Since retiring from working in schools he has continued to teach textile painting in  course centres and in his home studio. This gives him more time to explore an enduring interest in oil painting and a more recent interest in screen printing.

John Farmelo has exhibited widely in galleries in South East England and at art fairs, such as Art in Action, The affordable Art Fair and various Country Living fairs. He has also exhibited for many years with The Sussex Guild and in open studio exhibitions in the Brighton area. In recent years he has had an exhibition of his screenprints at The Kirsten Kjær Museum in Denmark and a retrospective solo exhibition, covering a wide range of media, at Skyway Gallery in Shoreham-by-Sea. He is currently preparing for a solo exhibition at Gallery Vandret in Ebeltoft. Denmark.

In his work he aims to apply paint with the decisiveness of a Chinese brush painter; to make pictures that are, on some level, close enough to the viewer’s own experience of the world that they feel tangibly recognisable; to make pictures which have a sense of balance and repay longer viewing; to make pictures which lift the spirits of the viewer and convey the sense of joy which, even in these stressed times, he often feels about the world around him. These are, of course, high aspirations and it is for the viewer to decide when and if he succeeds.