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Claudia McDonough

Drawing, Painting, Sculpture / Installation, Visual / Media

Words are a window dressing to memory and experience. These dimensions of life resist explicit analysis. Anyone who has suffered trauma or experienced the memory loss of a loved one is well-acquainted with the peculiar, vanishing folds of human self-reflection and knowledge. Memories are part fact and part fiction—does that make them less honest? Or more?

Claudia McDonough’s multi-media abstractions invite viewers into the unspoken depths of life. Formally trained as an abstract painter, the canvas gave way to the textures of memory and experience expressed through multi-media sculpture and textiles. By indwelling the hands haunting every stitch and fold, audiences merge their own sensations with each piece, creating something shared, secret, and surreal.

About the Artist

Born in Athens, Greece, Claudia McDonough is the daughter of a diplomat. She received her BA from Hampshire College in Massachusetts, and her MFA from Southern Methodist University in Texas in 1988. Claudia moved to Baltimore in 1991. Formally trained as an abstract painter, the canvas gave way to the textures of memory and experience expressed by multi-media sculpture and textiles. She has been awarded multiple Maryland State Arts Council Artist Grants for her work and has been an artist-in-residence at the BEMIS Center for Contemporary Art Residency (Omaha, NE) and School 33 Art Center Residency (Baltimore, MD). Her work has been exhibited nationally in venues such as Area 405 (Baltimore, MD), Salem College (Winston-Salem, NC), Arlington Museum of Art (Arlington, TX), and the Meadows Museum (Dallas, TX). She has been reviewed in publications such as The Baltimore Sun, City Paper, Winston-Salem Monthly, and Winston-Salem Journal.

Claudia McDonough website Claudia McDonough

Artist's Statement

https://claudiamcdonough.com/about/statement/

Featured Work

Photos

Nightgown is sewn from an army blanket. With a long camouflage tie in the back and camouflage ruffles, this piece references an endless news cycle of wars and conflicts, both domestic and foreign, that are part of our waking and sleeping life.
2020-2022 Vol. 1 & 2, blank books with rose gold pages, creates a space to reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic history not yet understood.
Letter to the Editor began with a photograph of the January 6th insurrection. I wanted to reach inside this moment to comment on a feeling of instability. Using fabric with an American flag motif, I cut out the stars and placed the stripes to create disorganized movement. The addition of a small strip of stars references a nation in crisis. We have been here before, it seems to me. We are rehashing the same issues of intolerance and mistaken identity, and it feels like self- loathing. Like we cannot bear to accept our reflection in the mirror. And each time we come to this point, there is always the chance that things won't work out. That we will break up.
9x5x4 in.

Videos