Creating a piece of art for an exhibit at the Memorial Union had more of a purpose than forging beauty with human hands. Student artists competed against each other to win awards and merits from a judge.

Forty-nine ISU students submitted 106 entries for exhibition by the Memorial Union. Of those entries, 47 pieces were selected by a juror to be part of the “Studies in Creativity” exhibit on display in the Memorial Union Gallery from Oct. 21 through Dec. 2.

“I started doing [the exhibit] just to get my work out there,” Dustin Kurrle, senior in art and design, says. “It’s good to put on your resume after you graduate. It builds confidence.”

Kurrle displayed three series of photographs.

He says he used photographs and mixed media to create pieces. His favorite is a mixed media series of three hanging scrolls, each with a nude woman on it in a different pose, segmented into several parts per scroll.

“It grabs your eye a little bit more,” Kurrle says.

Kurrle says his teachers encouraged him to try working with hanging fabric and he ended up using hanging scrolls to display his favorite series in the exhibit.

Another student selected to be part of the exhibit says the experience and challenge with the exhibit has strengthened his work as an artist.

“It just means that my photography is that much stronger, that much better,” says Matthew Bonsall, senior in art and design.

Bonsall, who displayed his painting “Burnt Caboose,” says his black and white simple photography took about seven or eight hours to create. He spent the hours touching up photos, and reprocessing them using trial and error to get the desired effect.

Laura Swan, freshman in pre-biology and pre-medical illustration, says the experience of the competition has helped her most.

“I like being in shows because of the experience of meeting the other artists and seeing how my work stacks up. It gives me an inspiration, a drive, to be the best that I can be,” Swan says.

Swan displayed a painting, titled “P.C!”

“[‘P.C!’ is about] a humor that I find in how seriously people take a lot of things,” Swan says. “Political correctness is one of those things for me,”

She says she spent an estimated 20 hours working on “P.C!”, which uses bold colors and many unified and similar shapes to create an abstract effect.

She says she, like many other artists, has trouble really explaining her work because it is such an intrinsic part of who she is.

Swan received a merit award for her piece, the lone freshman among a group of upperclassmen.

“I was pretty excited to win an award with all the seniors,” Swan says.

It is not just the recognition of excellence that appeals to these student artists — it’s the art itself.

“What makes it fun for me is the final creation of the project — I guess a love for [the art],” Bonsall says. “[It’s] going out and taking something that everyone uses daily and turning it into something that … is completely different.”