Claire McConaughy's works are a combination of elements that make poetic moments connected to the present and past. Her paintings are reactions to the process of painting and the history of landscape. Using a combination of painted passages and fluidly drawn lines her process allows for a variety of marks and layering of imagery with shapes giving way to lines and interlacing of imagery. The layers and use of color in her paintings create spatial tensions and surprising metaphors. These works continue in the lineage of landscape painting, and also come from McConaughy's early experiences in rural mountain woods and life in New York City.
McConaughy earned her MFA in painting from Columbia University and her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. She has exhibited in galleries including Red Fox Contemporary Art, Garvey-Simon West, The Drawing Center, The Painting Center, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Zürcher Gallery, 490 Atlantic and others. She is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, Millay Arts Residency, Ucross Foundation Residency and Santa Fe Art Institute Artist's Residency. Her work has been reviewed in Art Spiel, artcritical, White Hot Magazine, Hamptons Art Hub and other publications. She served on the editorial board and staff of the art journal New Observations for over a decade, has taught at several NYC art colleges and currently is a full professor at Bergen Community College. Originally from Southwestern Pennsylvania, McConaughy has lived and worked in New York for over thirty years.