Paintings of Presence, Memory and the Quiet Passage of Time
Catherine Corfield is a contemporary figurative painter whose work explores themes of time, memory, and emotional presence.
Working primarily from observation, she paints quiet, intimate moments drawn from everyday life, often depicting figures within domestic interiors or natural landscapes. Her practice is rooted in close looking, where subtle gestures, shifting light, and atmosphere carry emotional weight.
Corfield’s paintings focus on what is often overlooked: the in-between moments that shape experience but resist narration. Through a restrained and painterly approach, her work invites a slower engagement, where meaning unfolds gradually.
She is based in the UK.
Artist Statement
My work is concerned with how we experience time - not as something fixed, but as something felt through presence, memory, and attention.
I paint from observation, often focusing on quiet, everyday moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed. These are not staged scenes, but fragments of lived experience, where gesture, light, and atmosphere carry emotional significance.
Figures appear both connected and separate, held within spaces that suggest intimacy, distance, and the passage of time. Interiors and landscapes become settings for reflection, where meaning is not explicit, but gradually revealed.
Painting allows me to hold these moments - to slow them down, and to consider what remains.
