Five years ago, Carol Trawick began funding the highest paying art competition in the area at the time. The Trawick Prize, held at Creative Partners, was open to artists working in all media, with the high cash prizes often won by new media artists working in video, digital technologies and installation.

Encouraged by Fraser Gallery owner Catriona Fraser, Trawick began a similar competition open only to painters three years ago: the Bethesda Painting Award. The competition is open to all artists over 18, living in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, and is juried each year by three area arts professionals. According to Fraser, Trawick’s prizes raised the bar for cash awards in area art competitions, with several other high stakes prizes arising in the D.C. area since their inception.

This year’s winners were chosen from a pool of over 250 area painters. The three jurors chose seven finalists to exhibit their work and, once the work was hung, unanimously chose the first, second and third place winners. The seven finalists of this year’s Bethesda Painting Awards are on view until July 7 at the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda.

First place winner Matthew Klos, an MFA graduate of the University of Maryland, won $10,000 for his representational light-infused paintings of very still interiors. The youngest finalist, Klos’ selection as the winner has brought some controversy, most notably from Washington Post art critic Michael O’Sullivan, who called Klos "a merely serviceable academic painter of quasi-photo-realist utility sinks and the like" in his recent review.

Upon first view of Klos’ three largest paintings, I have to admit I agreed. After all, the Bethesda Painting Award is supposed to recognize the best of the area’s contemporary painters. How could it be that realistically painted interiors are the best of contemporary paintings in the D.C. area? After my initial dismissal of Klos’ work, I approached his approximately 9” x 12” painting American Icon (pictured above). The small grey-toned piece features an open window with the subtle reflection of an American flag. The reflection was so slight that one could easily miss it, and it was this subtleness that moved me to take another look at Klos’ three other works.

Both Daylight Studio and Red Light, Green Light appear to represent the same utility sinks, perhaps in Klos’ art studio. However, Red Light, Green Light features multiple items not included in the first piece, namely an additional soap dispenser, a red brush-washing sink, and a trash can. While the content of the work is decidedly uninteresting, perhaps this is the point. Matthew Klos’ realistic paintings depict uninteresting worlds and uninteresting places, yet he still paints them, lovingly portraying every day environments that seem very familiar to him. While Klos’ work may not draw you in from afar, when one looks more intently at the care taken to depict such still, plain environments, one's curiosity is piqued.

In contrast, the other work in the show is vastly different from Klos’ traditional style. Two standout artists, Cara Ober, who won 2nd place and received a $2000 prize, and finalist Heidi Fowler, incorporate mixed media in their work.

Ober often works as a printmaker, with one approximately 4’ x 4’ canvas work and four smaller paper pieces in the show. Though Ober’s large painting, Evangelist, incorporates fewer elements than her other work, its large scale distorts the delicateness found in her smaller framed prints, drawing attention to her contrasting depictions of birds in the piece, as well as the script-like painted text. The large painted bird image on the right side is relatively detailed, especially in comparison to the m-shaped childlike representations on the left. The inclusion of these two elements still reference the contrast between innocence and adulthood, but the inner dialog is not as intriguing as those created by the myriad elements portrayed in her smaller work.

Fowler paints human-influenced nature scenes by applying acrylic, fabric, ink and ink jet transfers to panels filled with collaged junk mail. In No. 02 1.12.2006 (pictured), Fowler depicts a nature scene with the imposed human elements of a fence, telephone pole and wires. She uses black netted fabric to create the fence, and reveals the underlying layer of linear strips of junk mail at the bottom of the piece. The top layer of the painting is imprinted with mail stamps and illegible scripted writing carved into the paint. Fowler’s work is certainly successful on a decorative level. The textures created by the layers of junk mail, ink jet transfer and paint subtly and beautifully work together not only to create lovely art objects, but to ask questions about man’s influence on nature.

In the words of non-voting Chair Catriona Fraser, the Bethesda Painting Awards are intended to be a “broad survey of contemporary painting” which focuses “attention on the artists we have here” in the D.C. area. Like with any competition, controversy about the chosen few is to be expected. With the array of techniques and styles represented in the finalists, there is no doubt that a wide variety of artists were awarded with finalist status. In Fraser's opinion, it is tough for representational painters these days, disregarded by many museums and galleries who claim they are not contemporary. Fraser, for one, “is pleased that Matt won,” and glad to see positive attention for a representational painter.

The Fraser Gallery is located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E, Bethesda, Md. and open Tuesday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Bethesda Painting Awards is on display until July 7.