Finalists

2019 Trawick Prize Finalists

Stephanie Benassi, Linden, VA
Lori Anne Boocks’s current work explores painting and sculpture as well as the concept of concealment. She incorporates a variety of tactile materials, playing with textural juxtapositions, wrapping and binding her pieces to convey both restraint and mystery. Throughout her career, Boocks has been influenced by artists including Chiharu Shiota, Eva Hesse, Anselm Kiefer, Christo and Elizabeth Murray. Her work is included in private collections in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Paris and the Greater Washington, D.C. area, as well as in corporate collections in Washington, D.C. and Australia. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Old Dominion University.

                 
Hoesy Corona, Baltimore, MD
Clay Dunklin is an interdisciplinary artist whose experimental practice includes performative, video and installation works. Dunklin has exhibited his work nationally, including solo shows at the Orlando Science Center and the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. His work has also been included in group exhibits at The Holtzman Gallery in Towson, MD, The Stamp Gallery in College Park, MD, Circle Gallery at Maryland Federation of Art in Annapolis, MD and City Arts Factory in Orlando, FL. He is currently a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park where he was awarded a Graduate Teaching Fellowship. Dunklin received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing from the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Oletha DeVane, Ellicott City, MD
Mary Early’s recent works have relied solely on solid forms cast in wax. She chooses select shapes that she uses in repetition to create larger objects. Each shape is created through a series of fabrication steps and assembled by hand, resulting in subtle irregularities. When aggregated into a complete form, the sum of the repeated shapes exhibits a staggered and constantly changing pattern. Early has shown her work in numerous exhibits, both nationally and abroad, including the United States Botanic Garden, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Hemphill Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. and Galerie Im Ersten in Vienna, Austria. Early’s work is also included in both public and private collections. For several years she has been a recipient of the Artist Fellowship Grant from the DC Commission on Arts & Humanities. Early received her Bachelor of Arts from Bennington College where she studied visual art, film and video. She was a 2007 Trawick Prize finalist.

Muriel Hasbun, Silver Spring, MD
Jay Gould conceptually integrates scientific topics into installation and constructed photographic works that ponder provocative curiosities, paradoxes and the hidden world beyond our given senses. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent solo exhibitions at Loyola University in Baltimore, MD, McGlothlin Center for the Arts in Emory, VA, PhoPa Gallery in Portland, ME and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. His work has also been featured in group exhibitions, both nationally and abroad. Gould received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin and earned his Master of Fine Arts in photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design. He now teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art and at the Maine Media Workshops.

Monroe Isenberg, Washington, D.C. 
Caroline Hatfield explores concepts of utopia and science fiction through her interdisciplinary practice. Her studio practice utilizes methods of sculpture, installation, photography, and drawing to investigate landscape. Hatfield’s sculptural landscapes are composed of industrial relics, geological formations, and mutable material which obscure boundaries and accumulate into form. She has had solo exhibits at Towson University in Towson, MD, Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, MD, La Bodega Gallery in Baltimore, MD and Small Hall Gallery, Knoxville, TN. Most recently she had a solo exhibit at The Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA. Now based in Baltimore, Hatfield earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from the University of Tennessee and her Master of Fine Arts in interdisciplinary studio art from Towson University.

Renee Rendine, Towson, MD
Phaan Howng uses large-scale landscape paintings, sculptures and installations to cinematically stage the sublime and formidable beauty of a post-human earth. Her cinematic visions are driven by her sympathy for nature and disappointment in humanity’s inability to cease, or even slow down its ecologically destructive habits as flora and fauna likewise slowly spiral their way towards extinction. A painter, sculptor, installation and performance artist, Howng has had solo exhibits at the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA, the Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, MD, and at School 33 Art Center in Baltimore, MD. Her work has been featured in various publications, including Hyperallergic, Art F City, Bmore Art Magazine, Baltimore City Paper and Baltimore Magazine. Howng received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Boston University and her Master of Fine Arts in multidisciplinary art from Maryland Institute College of Art. She is a 2018 Sondheim Prize Semifinalist.

Mojdeh Rezaiepour, Vienna, VA
Reflecting his long-time interest in the aesthetic and atmospheric experience of industrial architecture, Timothy Makepeace’s artwork explores the visual and environmental impact of industrial structures on our landscape and the interaction of architecture, nature and economics. Investigating the interplay between realism and abstraction, his most recent works are large-scale photo-based charcoal drawings. His work is in local and international collections and his exhibition list includes shows in the Greater Washington, D.C. area at McLean Project for the Arts, American Institute of Architects, Washington Photography Center, Art Museum of the Americas, The Corcoran Museum, DC Arts Center and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Makepeace received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornell University. He also studied sculpture at the Corcoran School of Art and photography at the Smithsonian Institution. He was a 2015 Trawick Prize finalist.

Anne Rogers, Baltimore, MD
Nicole Salimbene is an artist working at the intersection of poetics, psychology, environmentalism and contemplative practice. She began showing her work in 2007 in a group exhibit in Nogent sur Oise and Montataire, France. Since then she has exhibited her work in numerous venues, including at the New Orleans Photo Alliance, (e)merge Art Fair in Washington, D.C., Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, Virginia and New York Affordable Art Market in New York, NY. Her 2016 solo exhibition at Flashpoint Gallery received recognition from The Art Newspaper, Washington Post, Al Tashkeel (Dubai) and Sculpture Magazine. Salimbene has twice been a recipient of an Individual Artists and Scholars Grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and was awarded a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Northern Colorado.