In a brightly lit room full of protruding pedestals and strategically arranged display cases, dozens of intricate paintings hang on the walls and strange pieces of furniture fight for visual attention. One painting on the back wall radiates bright colors, craning necks throughout the room. The painting consists of flaming red and yellow swirls around a collage of text and portraits of angry women dressed for a beauty pageant.

Amaryllis Monroig, senior in art and design and creator of the painting, said it represents her reaction to the way women are treated in her home country, Puerto Rico.

“The Miss Universe contest is a pretty big deal back home, and this piece is my reaction to the way they portray women through media,” she said. “They show beautiful women and they stop it there. They don’t show working women or others.”

Monroig is one of 42 students with artwork on display in gallery 181 at the College of Design Building. She said the exhibit is a great way for students to show some of their proudest works.

When asked to pick a favorite piece, Monroig couldn’t give an answer.

“I think with art, you keep developing. If you get attached to a piece too much you feel like ‘what am I going to do now?'”

Monroig said that although she’s a senior, she plans on sticking around a little bit longer and hone her skills before going to graduate school.

Several other seniors, including Ben Ryan, senior in art and design, said they will be taking an extra semester or two to build up a better portfolio before attempting to conquer the real world.

“I’m graduating a semester late next fall because I didn’t really get into my emphasis until after my sophomore year,” he said.

Ryan, whose emphasis is in woodworking, has a few works on display at the senior exhibit, including a pair of unusual-looking chairs.

“I knew I wanted to make two, and I had never worked with upholstery or steel before,” he said. “If you try sitting on them, they’re actually very comfortable.”

Ryan said the project took a chunk out of his wallet, costing around $300 for supplies.

“I’d never bought mahogany before. It turns out that stuff is really expensive,” he said.

As much as Ryan’s chairs may look like something out of “The Jetsons,” a few other pieces of furniture look far stranger, including a burlap-upholstered bench with dozens of legs in place of the typical four.

A bench is one of many avant-garde pieces of furniture on display by Matthew Obbink, senior in art and design.

“It’s very organic. It’s supposed to look like it’s walking,” he said. “I researched some insect forms and came up with this. It’ll even catch your leg if you walk by.”

Obbink said his emphasis is in furniture because of its real-world application.

“I like the fact that it’s actually useful. This bench is probably my proudest piece, but I’ve got a lamp in the other room that’s pretty cool,” he said, gesturing to a lamp with a round base and tree-like design.

Obbink finds balance has been a big part of his recent work, demonstrating by taking a seat on a one-legged stool that requires extra concentration to sit on. He said that graduating will be both a sad and terrifying experience.

“We’re a very tight-knit group of students. We’ve spent so much time together that it’ll be sad to leave, but I’m looking forward to being on my own and putting myself out there,” Obbink said.

Keitha Anderson, senior in art and design who hopes to teach someday, said many questions remain for graduating design seniors.

“With arts, it’s really open-ended. You never know where it’s going to take you, you kind of follow the opportunities you get,” Anderson said.

Although some seniors are unsure about what the future holds, others seem to already know exactly what they want to do.

“I want to work either developing video games or designing special effects for movies,” said Dustin Kohler, senior in art and design whose work focuses on 3-D design and special effects. He has a 3-D introduction on display that he designed for a television show that will air this summer.

“I worked on this from the beginning of last semester until the end of winter break,” he said, clicking a mouse and starting a projection of his design. Swirling hearts whirl on a mechanized machine and the screen zooms in on a safe-like door on one of the hearts as the animation takes off through a swirling 3-D tunnel.

“It’s actually for ‘Geek Love TV,’ a show based on a radio show that we started at Iowa State,” Kohler said. He said he has found 3-D animation isn’t as difficult as it is time-consuming.

Fellow ‘Geek Love’ founder Adam Struve, senior in art and design, said that 3-D-rendered art is not as widely accepted as traditional art forms, but he chooses to pursue it nonetheless.

“It’s not very well-respected by most jurors and things. They kind of think if they don’t have a pencil and paper in their hand, it’s not art, but I think that using a mouse takes just as much,” Struve said.

He said he would also like to do video game design and online animation, a medium he said he thinks is going to continue growing rapidly. He also said he’s more than ready to graduate, regardless of what the future holds.

“I’m really starting to see the age gap between myself and freshmen,” he said. “When I go to the UDCC, it’s crazy – there’s a difference in how they present themselves.”

Several of the seniors said they were looking forward to the reception on Friday, in which the juror’s awards will be announced.

“It will be really neat to take a step back and see what all my classmates have been doing,” Anderson said.