The Trawick Prize

The Trawick Prize

Finalist Exhibition September 4 – 28, 2025
Gallery B, 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District honors artists from Maryland, Washington, D.C. & Virginia.

Eight finalists have been selected for consideration for Trawick Prize. The exhibition of finalists will be held in September 2025 at Gallery B.

The 2024 winners were Pedro Ledesma III (Best in Show), Scott Pennington(2nd place), James Stephen Terrell (3rd place) and Paloma Vianey (Young Artist).

2025 Finalists

Sam Blanchard, Blacksburg, VA

Sam Blanchard received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002 from Ohio University and Master of Fine Art in Sculpture with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. He has an active group exhibition record, and has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Las Vegas Contemporary Art Center, The Delaware Contemporary, The Indianapolis Art Center, The Munson Museum in Utica, NY and The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, OH. Blanchard is interested in the role that unseen, unchecked, and seemingly unstoppable forces play in shaping our collective consciousness. He is an Associate Professor of Sculpture and Chair of Studio Art within the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. Most recently he was awarded a 2025/26 Professional Fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, VA.

Hyunsuk Erickson, Brandywine, MD

Hyunsuk Erickson is a multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work is deeply shaped by her early life on her family’s farm in South Korea. Erickson formally studied fine art at Chungju University in Korea. She immigrated to the United States in 2001 and earned a second Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She completed her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art at American University in 2022. Featured exhibitions include The Kreeger Museum, Washington, D.C.; Sandy Spring Museum, Olney, MD; Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD; Burlington City Arts, VT and 636 Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea. Erickson is the recipient of several prestigious residencies, including Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Vermont Studio Center, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Roxana Alger Geffen, Washington, D.C.

Roxana Alger Geffen is a textile artist and sculptor. For more than two decades she has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, The Woodlawn & Pope-Leighey House, Alexandria, VA and Flashpoint Gallery, Washington, D.C. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at The Kreeger Museum, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Design Atlanta; A.I.R Gallery, New York City and startgallery, New Zealand.  She has also received awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and has been selected for artist residencies at the Vermont Studio School and the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington. Geffen earned her Bachelor of Arts in Visual Art at Columbia University and received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Boston University.

Nate Larson, Baltimore, MD

Nate Larson is a contemporary artist and documentarian working with photographic media, artist books and time-based media. His projects have been widely exhibited across the United States and internationally, as well as featured in Wired, The Guardian, NPR’s The Picture Show, Slate and CNN. His artwork is included in the permanent collections of the George Eastman Museum, High Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Orlando Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago. Nate Larson is the Photography Area Head at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) in Baltimore. He has served as a Rubys Artist Fellow with the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, the McCullough Research Fellow at Marietta College, the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visiting Artist Fellow at Duke University, and was an artist-in-residence with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Florida. 

Danni O’Brien, Baltimore, MD

Danni O’Brien is a sculptor whose practice is rooted in tinkering, irreverence and embraced queerness. O’Brien scavenges and collects discarded materials, creating enigmatic assemblages through continuous acts of deconstruction and reconstruction. Her work incorporates assemblage, gardening, paper-making, ceramic hand building, woodworking, and casting. Their work has been featured in solo exhibitions atOrtega y Gasset Projects, The Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, and Tephra ICA. They have exhibited in group exhibitions with Asya Geisberg, Pazo Fine Art, Belger Arts Center and Hamiltonian Gallery. O’Brien is a 2024 Maryland State Arts Council Grant recipient and a 2022 Belle Foundation Grant winner. They are an artist-in-residence at Byrdcliffe Colony to work towards an upcoming solo exhibition with VisArts this fall.

Bria Sterling-Wilson, Owings Mills, MD

Bria Sterling-Wilson is a photographer and collage artist. In 2021, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Photography and Digital Arts from Towson University in Towson, Maryland. Sterling-Wilson’s work utilizes found imagery, magazines, newspapers, and fabrics to create captivating scenes, portraits, and interiors that explore the Black experience. Her work has been exhibited internationally and across the U.S., including in Sanquhar, Scotland; Brooklyn, New York; Los Angeles, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. She has been featured in publications such as BmoreArt, Contemporary Collage, EBONY Magazine, and Black Collagists: The Book. Sterling-Wilson is currently an artist-in-residence at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore.

Tara Youngborg, Elkridge, MD

Tara Youngborg is an artist, educator, curator and arts administrator. She has a Bachelor of  Arts in Art and Art History from St Mary’s College of Maryland a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Towson University. Her work uses digital media to create immersive video and audio installations that explore place, memory and technology. She is also the manager of the Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she directs the exhibition programming and advises the Contemporary Art Purchase Program. She has presented her work in solo exhibitions at the George Washington Carver Center for the Arts and the University of Mary Washington Media Wall, in group exhibitions in the United States and abroad, and always on the web at tarayoungborg.com.

Ju Yun, Chantilly, VA

Ju Yun received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Corcoran College of Art and Design. She has exhibited in the United States and abroad including recent solo exhibits at Art Expo in New York, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington and the Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA. Recently she had a six month-long solo exhibition at Springfield Museum of Art in Ohio.  She has participated in a numerous group shows and juried museum exhibitions at the Marin Museum of Contemporary of Art, Marin, CA; Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; William King Museum of Art, Abingdon, VA; and CICA Museum in South Korea. Recently she selected for Made in VA Biennial 2024 at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art.

2025 Jury

Shannon Leah Collis

Associate Professor of Art at University of Maryland

Shannon Leah Collis is a multidisciplinary artist who creates audiovisual installations and interactive environments that highlight the situated, embodied experience of hearing and seeing. Her work has been widely exhibited across North America and abroad, including solo exhibitions at The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, Ursinus College, PA; The Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott College, GA; Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia, PA; and Open Studio Contemporary Printmaking Centre Toronto, Canada. Other collaborations and screenings include projects at the Burrinja Cultural Centre, Australia; the Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) Australia, the Walters Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Baltimore, MD; and the Currents New Media Festival, Santa Fe, NM). Collis received her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, where she teaches digital media and sound.

Andy Holtin

Department Chair and Associate Professor of Art at American University

Andy Holtin teaches all levels of sculpture, addressing traditional media as well as installation formats, kinetic and interactive systems, and digital audio and video at American University. His work uses technological systems to create performative objects and interactive installations, incorporating an exploratory range of materials and processes. Holtin currently works as half of the collaborative duo CausalityLabs, pursuing projects that explore mechanisms as a metaphor for human experience and perception. His work has been exhibited internationally at locations including Galerie35, Berlin, Germany; Museo Antropologico y de Arte Contemporaneo, Ecuador; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; Planetario Alfa Science and Culture Museum, Mexico; and nationally at museums, galleries, and universities from New York to Portland to Florida. Holtin earned his Master of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Sculpture + Extended Media program.

Dr. Massa Lemu

Associate Professor of Art, Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University

Massa Lemu is an Associate Professor of Sculpture + Extended Media. He is a Malawian visual artist and writer whose multi-disciplinary artistic practice takes the form of text, performance, and multimedia installations that are concerned with the contradictions of migration, and the psychological effects of an immaterial, flexible and mobile capitalism on the post-colonial subject. Lemu makes interventions into objects to comment on their social, economic, or spiritual aspects. Sometimes he uses aesthetics of politics to comment on the politics of aesthetics. Lemu earned his Ph.D in visual arts from the University of Stellenbosch in Cape Town, South Africa; his Maste of Arts in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design; and his Bachelor Education in Fine Art from the Chancellor College University of Malawi Zomba, Malawi.

Exhibition

Selected finalists will have their work on display September 4 – September 28, 2025 in downtown Bethesda at Gallery B, located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E. The Gallery is located just two blocks from the Bethesda Metro station and parking is available in the public lot on Woodmont Avenue.

Trawick Prize Gallery Hours:
Thursday – Saturday, 12 – 5pm; Sundays, 11am-4pm

Opening Reception:
Friday, Sept. 12, 6-8pm

Founder & Chair

Founder, Carol Trawick

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards was established by Carol Trawick in 2003. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 25 years in downtown Bethesda. She currently serves as Chair of the Maryland State Arts Council. Trawick formally served as Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, Chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc., Chair of Strathmore Music Center, President of Bethesda Chevy Chase Rotary Club and Vice Chair of the Montgomery County Parks Foundation. She was honored as the 2010 Montgomery County Philanthropist of the Year and named Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine. She was elected to the Montgomery County Business Hall of Fame in 2012. Also in 2012, Trawick created the 10th Anniversary Sapphire Award to honor the 10 Trawick Prize winners from 2003-2012. The Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation was established in 2007 after the Trawicks sold their successful information technology company. She also established the now annual Bethesda Painting Awards.

Chair, Catriona Fraser

Catriona Fraser, award-winning photographer, curator and juror is the non-voting Chair of The Trawick Prize. Fraser has directed the Fraser Gallery since 2002 and also serves on the Washington ASchool of Photography Advisory Board and Washington Art Works Board. Her work has been exhibited in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburg, PA; the Otero Museum in Colorado, and throughout Europe and Latin America. Additionally, she has organized, curated and juroies more than 100 fine art exhibits, She remains actively engaged in supporting the careers of local, emerging artists and teaches an intensive six hour business and marketing seminar, “Success as an Artist.” Fraser serves as Chair of the Bethesda Painting Awards and is the Director of the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival.

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