2011 Bethesda Painting Awards Finalists
James Adkins, Ellicott City, MD
James Adkins received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from the University of Maryland, College Park, and his Master of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He is currently the director of visual arts at Howard Community College in Columbia, MD. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions along the East Coast including Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, MD and Columbia Art Center in Columbia, MD. Adkins’ subject of choice is the human figure as it is “the subject that is never mastered.” |
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John Aquilino, Rockville, MD
John Aquilino has focused on the urban landscape since moving to Maryland from New York City in 2003. He has received several awards, competitions and grants including: New American Paintings, Southern Competition #88 and Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County Individual Artist Grant in 2010, and the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in 2006, 2008 and 2010. Aquilino won second prize in the 2005 Bethesda Painting Awards. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows throughout the greater Washington, D.C. area and East Coast. |
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Sheila Blake, Takoma Park, MD
Sheila Blake earned her Master of Arts in Painting from Goddard College. She is a recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Excellence in Painting in 2010, and an Images of Washington Purchase Award from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities in 2003. She was a finalist in the 2010 Bethesda Painting Awards. Blake has had recent solo exhibitions at the Sam Abbott Gallery in Takoma Park, MD and at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, MD. Additionally, Blake’s work has been featured in group exhibitions throughout the East Coast since 1970. |
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Ron Boehmer, Lynchurg, VA
Ron Boehmer received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania. Boehmer has worked as Visual Arts Program Director at the Lynchburg Fine Arts Center in Lynchburg, VA. He has taught courses in art history at Central Virginia Community College, Lynchburg College, Hollins University, the Virginia School of the Arts, the Lynchburg Fine Arts Center and the Beverley Street Studio School, which Boehmer co-founded. Boehmer has exhibited in more than 70 juried shows, winning numerous awards, including more than 18 Best in Show awards. |
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J. Jordan Bruns, Chevy Chase, MD
J. Jordan Bruns received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Illustration from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and Master of Fine Arts from Indiana University. His current work focuses on the cycle of growth and destruction that occurs in humanity. His exhibitions have been viewed across the United States from a solo show in the Indiana University Art Museum to the Foundry Art Center in St. Charles, MO. Currently, he is the studio manager of The Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery, a resident artist in the Chautauqua Tower in Glen Echo Park, and the director of “An Evening with the Arts: A Benefit for the Children’s Inn at NIH.” |
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Lisa Gostev, Reisterstown, MD
Lindsay McCulloch holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from Indiana University. Gostev also spend a semester studying in Florence, Italy. She taught at Indiana University from 2009 through 2010, returning to the Baltimore area in 2011 to be a lecturer at Anne Arundel Community College. Gostev is “attracted to light as it falls on a surface as a shape of color, the way color shifts on a wall and how forms dissolve into darkness.” |
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Alison Hall, Roanoke, VA
Alison Hall is currently an Assistant Professor of Art, Undergraduate Painting and Drawing at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree at the Hollins University and earned her Masters of Fine Arts from American University in Washington, D.C. with a concentration in Painting, Drawing and Printmaking. Hall has been featured in exhibitions along the East Coast, as well as internationally in Italy and Holland. Her current work is about the phenomena of the landscape. |
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Emma Steinkraus, Washington, D.C.
Emma Steinkraus earned a Bachelor of Art in Studio Art from Williams College, where she graduated with highest honors. She has received many honors, including an Artist-In Residence Fellowship at Henry Luce III Center for Religion and the Arts, Hubbard Hutchinson Fellowship and Berkshire Arts Association Fellowship. Steinkraus’ work reflects her personal life as well as the futures she fantasizes about and fears. Her desire is to “make paintings that fight for something like grace amidst the pressures of desolation, disengagement and selfishness.” |
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