Bethesda Painting Prize winners

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District announced the top three Bethesda Painting Awards prize winners on Wednesday evening during the exhibition’s opening at Gallery B. Tanja Softic of Richmond, VA was awarded “Best in Show” with $10,000; Richard Levine of Falls Church, VA was named second place and was given $2,000 and Amy Sherald of Baltimore, MD received third place and was awarded $1,000.

 

Tanja Softic studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Sarajevo and earned her Master of Fine Arts in printmaking from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. She works across the media of printmaking, drawing, photography and book arts. She is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Grant, National Endowment for the Arts/ Southern Arts Federation Visual Artist Fellowship and Soros Foundation - Open Society Institute Exhibition Support Grant. Tanja’s work is included in numerous collections in the United States and abroad, among them New York Public Library, Library of Congress Print Department and New South Wales Gallery of Art in Sydney, Australia. She participated in 12th International Print Triennial in Cracow, Poland and won a First Prize at the 5th Kochi International Triennial Exhibition of Prints, Ino-cho Paper Museum in Kochi, Japan in 2002. She completed print projects at Flying Horse Press, Tamarind Institute and Anderson Ranch's Patton Print Studio. She lives and works in Richmond, VA, where she is Professor of Art at the University of Richmond.

 

The eight artists selected as finalists are:

 

John Aquilino, Rockville, MD

Katie Baines, North Chesterfield, VA

Amy Chan, Henrico, VA

Andy Karnes, Baltimore, MD

Richard Levine, Falls Church, VA

Erin Raedeke, Montgomery Village, MD

Amy Sherald, Baltimore, MD

Tanja Softic, Richmond, VA

 

A public opening will be held on Friday, June 10, 2016 from 6 – 9pm in conjunction with the Bethesda Art Walk. Gallery B is located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E in downtown Bethesda. The work of the eight finalists will be on display from June 3-27, 2015. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 12 – 6pm.

Entries were juried by Dorothy Moss, Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery and Director of the Triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition; 

Dr. David Park Curry, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, American Painting & Sculpture at the Baltimore Museum of Art and Megan Marlatt, award-winning painter and Professor of Art and at University of Virginia.

 

The Bethesda Painting Awards was established by Carol Trawick in 2005. Ms. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 25 years in downtown Bethesda. She is past chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, past chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. and founder of The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards.

".art" domain to launch this fall

UK Creative Ideas Limited (UKCI) signed an agreement with ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in late March, to launch and be the exclusive operator of the new .ART top-level domain (TLD). Launching in late fall 2016, .ART is new, undeveloped Internet real estate dedicated to serving the arts and culture communities by providing the infrastructure to enhance and preserve the art industry’s online presence. With more name choice, shorter names, exact match for searches, and immediate identification with the arts, the global art world will have a new opportunity to meaningfully connect to their audiences in the digital realm.

“We are very fortunate to have secured .ART for the long-term,” states Ulvi Kasimov, Founder of UKCI. “We are at the beginning of an exciting new phase of innovation for art online, and .ART will be an important facilitator for existing and future players within the arts and culture community.”

“Our goals are to support existing museums, galleries, artists, auction houses and others in protecting and enhancing their brands, to inspire new organizations to build on .ART real estate, and to make domain names available to younger players to the art scene whose names are no longer available in other TLDs and want to immediately be identified with the art world,” states John Matson, CEO of UKCI.

The process of securing .ART began in 2012 when UKCI submitted an application to operate .ART to ICANN, the global nonprofit responsible for regulating and overseeing the Internet’s domain name policy. In 2014, ICANN expanded the number of generic top-level domains including major cities such as .nyc and .london, industry-specific domains such as .luxury and .guru; as well as brands like .axa, .bmw, and .google. Now with this new contract in place, the launch of the .ART domain will take place in late 2016.

To request a .ART domain or to learn more about .ART, please visit the website at www.dotart.domains.

Airborne

Heading to Miami to see my mother...

Last Friday the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) launched a new eMuseum that makes the District's fine art and public art collections available to the public in digital format for the first time.

 

The site will catalogue more than 2,800 pieces of the District's Art Bank fine arts collection, as well as public artworks commissioned by the DC government. Users will be able to search by different criteria, including artist name, media and year of creation.

 

"Using technology in this way allows us to make these artworks accessible to a larger group of the population," said Arthur Espinoza, Jr., Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. "The District has acquired an impressive collection of works by local artists over many years, and we want to make sure that our residents and visitors have the opportunity to see and engage these pieces."

 

The new site is part of innoMAYtion, Mayor Muriel Bowser's month-long initiative that showcases DC's innovation ecosystem.

 

The Art Bank is the District's fine art collection, managed by DCCAH. Each year, DCCAH takes submissions from local artists to be included in the collection. Submissions are reviewed by an independent panel that makes purchase recommendations. The artworks are then displayed in public areas of District government buildings.

 

Currently, 40% of the collection is available to view online. The total collection will be online by the end of 2016. Public artworks commissioned by the District will also be viewable online.

 

Visitors to the site will have the option to register for a free account to save their favorite works, as well as share artworks on social media networks.

 

For more information, visit: www.dcarts.dc.gov.

Memorial Day

Have a grand Memorial Day! Our grateful thanks to all those who have served and their families, and our gratitude to all the soldiers, airmen/women, marines, and sailors currently serving all over the world and at sea.


We've got your back!

RESPECT: Unsung Heroes in Uniform Art Exhibit at Del Ray Artisans Gallery

Opening Reception: Friday, June 3 from 7-9pm

Show Dates: June 3-26, 2016

When one is in uniform, people tend to see the uniform but not the individual. Let’s take a moment to give respect to ALL unsung heroes in uniform: coaches, teams, nurses, doctors, dentists, vets, food and restaurant workers, janitors, maintenance employees, retail service workers, gym instructors, landscape workers, bus and train drivers, police officers, and security personnel... just to name a few!

Visit Del Ray Artisans gallery in June to see how area artists chose to show their respect. Some artists expressed their point of view, depicted something funny or thought provoking, or honored a loved one. There will also be a small memorial section in the gallery where visitors can reflect, contemplate or remember. The exhibit runs June 3-26, 2016.

 

Please join uthemfor the opening reception on Friday, June 3 from 7-9pm, and check Del Ray Artisans website calendar for other events scheduled throughout the month.

 

The RESPECT exhibit is at Del Ray Artisans gallery in the Colasanto Center, 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia 22301. Gallery hours are: Thursdays 12-6pm, First Thursdays (April-September) 12-9pm, Fridays 12-9pm, Saturdays 12-9pm, and Sundays 12-6pm. The gallery is free, open to the public and handicap accessible.

For more information, please visit www.TheDelRayArtisans.org or contact the curator, Tracy Wilkerson, at RecycledWorks@yahoo.com.

Tim Tate

What has DMV uber artist Tim Tate been up to in the last few?






A Century Of Longing
9 x 9 x 1 inches
Cast Ploy-Vitro, Video

This piece's video shows the first time in history that two men were filmed dancing together. It is 1898 in Thomas Edison's studio. Just as the way we perceive these two men has morphed over the last century, and so too has the way we view new media. They could never have known that the three minutes they stood and danced together would become an iconic image for a new age

Aubergine Infinity
Cast Poly-Vitro, Glass, Lighting
16 x 16 x 3 inches

Bellows Interrupted
15 x 23 x 4 inches
Wood, Video



Crimson Infinity
16 x 16 x 4 inches
Cast Poly-Vitro, Glass, Lighting



I See How Far I've Wandered
9"rd
Poly-Vitro, Video

 Video is of a woman, writing on a chalkboard, "I See How Far I've Wandered" forwards and backwards

On These Magic Shores
Blown and Cast Glass, Found Objects
26 x 10 x 10
The small figure on the top finial dreams of childhood memories. The title comes from a quote from Peter Pan



She Was Often Gripped With The Desire To Be Elsewhere..
Blown and Cast Glass, Video
25 x 10 x 10

Inside the dome, a young woman holds a video screen showing a girl in a pleated skirt and saddle shoes confidently carrying a suitcase into her unknown future. The top finial is of a cast glass hand holding a compass.

Summer Anthracite
Cast Poly Vitro, Video
9" round

 Video is a stop motion of tulips opening and closing

The Awe Of Imagination
24 x 18 x 4
Cast Glass, Video

The Guardian/The Watcher
Cast poly Vitro, Video
18 x 24
There are two videos in this piece: One left, one right. Each is of an eye peering through a peephole, the other a girl in negative, spinning in a dress

The Next 50 Years Begin Now....
Blown and Cast Glass, Found Objects, LED
25 x 14 x 8

Inside the smaller dome are shards from the original piece. On top of that is a small man holding a large video screen, playing that video. The finial on the outer dome is a bust of Dale Chihuly. The surface of the outer dome has been etched with the history of Dale Chihuly, his importance to the arts, and ends with his lawsuit against his former assistant for knocking him off.




The Oculus Of The Titanic
18 x 16 x 2
Cast Glass, Video

The imagining of an intricately carved porthole in the Titanic and the view from today



The Sea Always Filled Her With Longing
15 x 23 x 4
Wood, Glass, Video

The cast glass panel in front is cast with lenses, each one refracting the video image of the gently rolling sea behind the glass.

The Shadow Nation
Cast poly Vitro, Video
18 x 24

 There are two videos in this piece: One left, one right... each is of an eye peering through a peephole, presumably at each other



Tread Softly, You Tread On My dreams
16 x 16 x 4
Cast Poly-Vitro, Video

This piece writes then unwrites over and over this line from the famous poem, making each work important... and mesmerizing to watch.



Violet Infinity
16 x 16 x 4
Cast Poly-Vitro, Glass, Lighting

An entirely illuminated infinity piece