Works By Paul Corfield

His reasoning was that with the advent of computer design lying just around the corner, the demand for the production of graphical illustrations manually would have subsided alarmingly, had he chosen to study Technical Illustration which he was all set to do at the time.

Instead Corfield sought employment with an engineering company – where he stayed for the following 13 years - and maintained and developed his interest in art during his spare time. Whilst with this firm, he met the woman who was to become his future wife, and who Corfield describes as his rock, and who he credits as being the person without whom he wouldn’t have go on to achieve what he has to date, namely Sara.

Not long after they were married Sara fell pregnant, yet tragically this normally happy, optimistic time resulted in Sara being diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, which essentially meant she’d keep having miscarriages. Thankfully, the couple now have two children, courtesy of the marvels of modern medicine as Corfield refers to it as, yet before this the outlook was a lot bleaker. Corfield describes how just a week after the birth of their firstborn; Sara had come off the medication that had kept the baby alive and physically made the birth possible in the first place, which in turn colluded to give her a massive stroke. As you can imagine, their lives were thrown into immediate turmoil, and Corfield was planning for a potential eventuality that could easily see him looking after Sara for the rest of their lives together. Understandably any thoughts toward his art went straight out of the window as they faced up to a less optimistic future. Just when Corfield believed his art career would remain a distant dream, things with Sara turned around, as she made a full recovery and returned home to be with their new arrival. Four years on they went against people’s better judgement and tried for another baby, and mercifully Sara’s continued medication meant that this birth went according to plan. Corfield concurs that pivotal events like this in your life alter the way you address aspects, and underlines that old adage about life being too short to waste.

With this very much at the forefront of his mind, Corfield made a momentous and life-changing decision in 2002, in the aftermath of receiving news that was out of his control, yet he used to his advantage as a positive platform from which to launch his professional art career. In light of the engineering firm for which he still worked struggling and employee downsizing being very much on the cards, Corfield made the bold and brave decision to opt for voluntary redundancy. His idea was to live off his severance pay for 12 months whilst he committed himself to his art. For a year he simply painted and painted, with the opinions of those against the idea ringing in his ears throughout, and proving an inspiration. Detractors had reasonably argued that with two young mouths to feed, Corfield perhaps shouldn’t have cut his losses and left full-time work to follow his dream, whilst people also mused that familiar notion that nobody could make a living from being an artist. His wife, Sara on the other hand, stood resolutely behind Corfield, offering her full support.

Reverting to his passion for the intricacies of detailed artwork delivered with a realist’s edge, Corfield spent the next 3 years manufacturing highly elaborate pieces, which he classifies as ‘contemporary realism’ or ‘photorealism’, to coin a phrase and generally perceived genre. Success soon arrived, and it wasn’t long before Corfield’s work was being exhibited to massive audiences in both the UK (notably London) and further a field in America. All the while in the background, Corfield was labouring away on a concept that would evolve into more widely recognisable landscape studies, examples of which we observe in his most recent compositions, however he toyed with this concept for in excess of a year before being provided with the opportunity to develop it. That was in direct response to him having forwarded his ideas to Washington Green, who themselves saw the potential and the natural evolution in Corfield’s work. For the first time the artist felt sufficiently emancipated from his own self-imposed restraints to create more fluid, freer flowing brush strokes, with greater emphasis placed on movement and rapidity of thought, and to embrace the confidence to float off into the realms of fantasy once in a while, rather than be constrained by this dogged adherence to linear lines which had characterised his earlier works