Baltimore artist Lillian Bayley Hoover was awarded “Best in Show” on Wednesday at the Bethesda Urban Partnership’s Trawick Prize contemporary art contest.
Hoover won $10,000 for her oil painting based on a photograph of a scale model Pergamon Altar in the ancient Greek city of Pergamon, in modern day Turkey.
It comes from her “Sites of Power” series:
These paintings continue to be based on photographs of scale models, and the distortion that occurs as imagery is translated from one medium to another remains significant: the “real” thus endures a substantial filtration process and the viewer’s relationship with it becomes estranged.
Rendered photographically, but with severe cropping and awkward perspective, the images are reduced to formal composition, pattern and color, remaining only minimally recognizable. These quasi-abstract paintings return the reified concept of power to an abstract state, denuding the structures of the power they once wielded.
Mt. Rainier, Md., resident David D’Orio won second place and $2,000. Washington D.C.’s Dean Kessmann got third place and won $1,000. “Young Artist” award winner Hannah Walsh, of Richmond, Va., also took home $1,000.
The work of all the finalists will be on display at Gallery B (7700 Wisconsin Ave., Suite E) until Sept. 29, Wednesday through Saturday, 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The public opening reception will be held in conjunction with the Bethesda Art Walk on Sept. 14 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information, visit BUP’s Trawick Prize website.