“I paint and draw things, but I do not work from life. Although I begin with the object, I paint and draw from measurement and memory. I choose objects with little meaning or narrative attached. They are anonymous utilitarian objects; a fan, a spring, a tire. I choose them for their formal qualities, their shape, color and geometry.

I begin by measuring the object; it’s height, width and depth. Once the dimensions are determined, I place the framework in the center of the page, adjust the drawing, establish the space, and invent the light. Then I begin to draw, and the drawing takes on a life of it’s own.

I draw and erase. Things appear and vanish. The process is one of searching, not knowing. The certainty and doubt is in the history of the surface. And the work takes on a new meaning and the subject becomes the work itself.”

-Andrew Watel

Andrew Watel grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He received an undergraduate degree in Painting from San Francisco State University in 1977 and a Master of Fine Art from Yale University in 1983. Upon graduating from Yale, he moved to New York City where he independently pursued painting and teaching. In 1993, as a founding member, he established and developed The Painting Center, an independent non-profit artist run space. He curated several shows there, including the work of such ‘painter’s painters’ as Albert York and Jake Berthot. Twenty-eight years later, The Center remains viable today and offers artists alternative exhibition space. From 2006 until 2017 he taught as an Adjunct Professor of Painting and Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. Here he developed his own curricula for beginning and advanced painting and drawing, led seminars and supervised independent projects.
In 2018 he moved from New York to Kansas City to pursue painting full time.

Tilly Woodward graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the University of Kansas. She is Curator of Academic and Community Outreach at Grinnell College’s Faulconer Gallery, and Founding Director of the Pella Community Art Center (1989 – 2007). Her work has been exhibited in more than 191 museums and galleries nationally and can be found in museum, corporate and private collections in Israel, Ghana, Uganda, India, and throughout the United States. Collections include the Addison Gallery of American Art, Des Moines Art Center, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Meredith Corporation, University of Iowa Museum of Art, West Publishing and Vermeer Manufacturing. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including two Fellowships for Drawing from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has initiated many arts outreach projects designed to help communities address specific social issues, foster creativity, build tolerance and compassion. She is well known for her highly realistic, meticulously detailed oil paintings. 

Tilly Woodward graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the University of Kansas. She is Curator of Academic and Community Outreach at Grinnell College’s Faulconer Gallery, and Founding Director of the Pella Community Art Center (1989 – 2007). Her work has been exhibited in more than 191 museums and galleries nationally and can be found in museum, corporate and private collections in Israel, Ghana, Uganda, India, and throughout the United States. Collections include the Addison Gallery of American Art, Des Moines Art Center, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Meredith Corporation, University of Iowa Museum of Art, West Publishing and Vermeer Manufacturing. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including two Fellowships for Drawing from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has initiated many arts outreach projects designed to help communities address specific social issues, foster creativity, build tolerance and compassion. She is well known for her highly realistic, meticulously detailed oil paintings. 

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.

Claire McConaughy is a painter who lives and works in New York. She earned her MFA in painting from Columbia University and her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. She has exhibited in galleries including “Selections 45” at The Drawing Center, “not so far away” at The Painting Center, “Persona” at the Therese A. Maloney Art Gallery, College of St. Elizabeth, “Eleven Women of Spirit” at Zürcher Gallery and others. She received a Ucross Foundation Residency and Santa Fe Art Institute Artist’s Residency. Her work has been reviewed in artcritical, White Hot Magazine, Hamptons Art Hub and other publications.

For over a decade McConaughy was on the staff of New Observations Magazine, a non-profit art journal. McConaughy is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Bergen Community College. Her experience as an educator includes adjunct teaching at the School of Visual Arts and Marymount Manhattan College.

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.

Claire McConaughy is a painter who lives and works in New York. She earned her MFA in painting from Columbia University and her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. She has exhibited in galleries including “Selections 45” at The Drawing Center, “not so far away” at The Painting Center, “Persona” at the Therese A. Maloney Art Gallery, College of St. Elizabeth, “Eleven Women of Spirit” at Zürcher Gallery and others. She received a Ucross Foundation Residency and Santa Fe Art Institute Artist’s Residency. Her work has been reviewed in artcritical, White Hot Magazine, Hamptons Art Hub and other publications.

For over a decade McConaughy was on the staff of New Observations Magazine, a non-profit art journal. McConaughy is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Bergen Community College. Her experience as an educator includes adjunct teaching at the School of Visual Arts and Marymount Manhattan College.