Claire Mcconaughy: Uncultivated

EXHIBITION DATES: March 3 – March 28, 2026

RECEPTION: Thursday, March 5, 5 - 8 pm

The Painting Center is pleased to present Uncultivated, a solo exhibition of oil paintings by artist Claire McConaughy. The exhibition opens on Tuesday, March 3, and runs through Saturday, March 28, 2026. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, March 5, from 5 to 8 pm.

The exhibition Uncultivated relates the wild, uncultivated nature of painting to the environment that is left to its’ own without human intervention. These ten paintings show heightened, dreamlike images of nature that are rooted in reality, transformed through subconscious perception, and the act of painting. McConaughy’s source is the vivid, radiant energy of the natural world, whose vitality she seeks to channel and convey.

McConaughy’s process begins in direct encounters with nature — exploring forests, woods, and rural areas as well as observing trees, flowers, and weeds in New York City, where she has lived for 30 years. She carries these experiences into her studio, where they are reimagined through exaggerated color and expressive mark-making. In this transformation, representations of nature evolve into vibrant paintings that confront the viewer.

The reverence for nature demonstrated in 19th-century American landscape painting as well as the concept of “interior vision” practiced by the French Symbolists are precursors for her work. Like them, McConaughy not only observes the external world but translates the relationship between inner experience and outward creation.

McConaughy lives and works in Brooklyn and upstate New York. She has exhibited nationally in galleries including Nick Ryan Gallery, The Drawing Center, 490 Atlantic, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Zürcher Gallery, Red Fox Contemporary Art, and Garvey-Simon West. 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. She also has taught at several NYC art colleges and is a full professor at Bergen Community College. Originally from southwestern Pennsylvania, McConaughy earned an MFA in painting from Columbia University and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University.

For more information on the artist, visit www.clairemcconaughy.com and @clairemc431.