The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, a juried art competition produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, announced
the top three prize winners last night during the exhibition’s opening. Lauren Adams
from Baltimore, MD was awarded “Best in Show” with $10,000; Sarah Irvin
from Springfield, VA was named second place and given $2,000; and Ben Marcin
from Baltimore, MD was bestowed third place and received $1,000.
Lauren Adams,
who earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North
Carolina and her Master
of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University, mines the histories of
power, labor and material culture to make surprising connections that
resonate with current sociopolitical issues. Her work has been featured
at ConnerSmith in Washington, D.C., The Walters
Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, Contemporary Applied Arts in London, UK,
Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, MO and the Mattress Factory in
Pittsburgh, PA, among others. She attended the Skowhegan School of
Painting and Sculpture and held residencies at the
Cite in Paris, France and the Jentel Foundation in Wyoming. She
received the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Award in 2007, was a finalist
for the Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize in 2014, and was recently named a
2016 Pollock Krasner Foundation grant recipient.
2016 Trawick Prize Finalists
Lauren Adams, Baltimore, MD
Cindy Cheng, Baltimore, MD
Leah Cooper, Baltimore, MD
Sarah Irvin, Springfield, VA
Dean Kessmann, Washington, D.C.
Ben Marcin, Baltimore, MD
Tony Shore, Baltimore, MD
William Wylie, Charlottesville, VA
The work of the finalists will be on exhibit at Gallery B, 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E, until September 24.
The public opening reception will be held Friday, September 9 from 6-8pm.
Gallery hours for the duration of the exhibit are Wednesday through Saturday, 12 – 6pm.
Entries were juried by
Stéphane Aquin, Chief Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Hasan Elahi, Associate Professor, Department of Art at University of Maryland and
Rebecca Schoenthal, Curator of Exhibitions and Co-Interim Director at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia.
The
Trawick Prize was established in 2003 by Carol Trawick, a longtime
community activist in downtown Bethesda. She is the past Chair of both
the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District and Bethesda
Urban Partnership, and also the Founder of the Bethesda Painting
Awards. In 2007, Ms. Trawick founded the Jim and Carol Trawick
Foundation to assist health and human services and arts non-profits in
Montgomery County.
The
Trawick Prize is one of the first regional competitions and largest
prizes to annually honor visual artists. To date, The Trawick Prize has
awarded $205,000 in prize monies and has exhibited
the work of more than 130 regional artists. Previous Best in Show
recipients include Richard Cleaver, 2003; David Page, 2004; Jiha Moon,
2005; James Rieck, 2006; Jo Smail, 2007; Maggie Michael, 2008; Rene
Trevino, 2009; Sara Pomerance, 2010; Mia Feuer,
2011; Lillian Bayley Hoover, 2012; Gary Kachadourian, 2013; Neil
Feather, 2014 and Jonathan Monaghan, 2015.
