Description
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is a Spiritual Archaeology—a process of digging through the rust of a previous life to build a sovereign future.
For much of my life, I practiced a femininity of endurance. Growing up in a landscape of dysfunction and neglect, I learned early on how to stuff it all down and plow through, excelling at the roles society expected of me. But beneath the polished exterior, a wordless creative force was waiting for its moment of release. That release came around the time I turned fifty. It was a personal ‘launch into space’ that finally allowed me to find my true voice. It was then that I began a dedicated practice of reconstructing my world through the lens of the Alchemist’s Archive.
I create because I am driven to find the ‘Signs of Life’ in the fragments. Whether I am hand-painting thousands of beans to form a ‘Seed-Bearer’ or engineering a 4.5-foot Goddess to stand on her own, my process is one of obsessive devotion. I utilize sequins, beads, pins, wire, twine, found objects, religious imagery, ancient geometry and pattern to map out a Celestial Blueprint—a way of navigating the transition from being bound to being free.
In my studio, the ordinary becomes sacred. I see the ‘Red Thread’ connecting a found heart on a sidewalk to the protective palm of a Zodiac Hamsa. Each piece I create is an altar to the idea that we are not defined by our collapses, but by the architecture we build from the ruins. My art is my evidence that even the most silent years can result in a powerful, standing wisdom.
I don’t create symbols to worship them; I create them to remember who I am.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Marie Corfield’s multi-disciplinary practice is grounded in intuitive creativity, cultivated over a 25-year tenure as an elementary art educator. Holding a BFA in Illustration and a Masters in Teaching, her practice explores Spiritual Archaeology—balancing structural integrity with a raw, uninhibited process.
A life-changing 2008 experience served as a conceptual Big Bang for her current body of work. This moment of liberation from societal roles is captured vividly in her expressive, high-contrast self-portraiture and sculptural goddesses. Utilizing bold color as well as thousands of individual faceted beads, pins, and found elements, Corfield constructs armored, totemic busts capturing the resilience and reclaimed agency of the feminine archetype.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Monmouth Museum and the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibition: The Bias Inside Us, and the 2026 Global Art League juried show in Montreal, Canada.
© Marie Corfield