A panel of judges from the College of Engineering and the College of Liberal Arts honored seven participants in the third annual Art of Engineering challenge.
The competition was born from the desire to beautify the engineering buildings while simultaneously expressing the collaboration between art and engineering.
This year, judges presented awards in five categories: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Best Sculpture and the Dean’s Appreciation Award.
Nina Menon (Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, ’21) and Victoria Dai (Electrical Engineering) were each honored with the Platinum Award.
Menon’s “Kaleidoscope of Chips” depicts how art is evident throughout the manufacturing process. “I wanted to show that art is created as a mill follows its toolpath,” Menon explained. “My painting represents the idea that when chips are produced, art is formed.”
Dai’s submission, “Little Bug City,” shows a futuristic city in which people are smaller than the size of ants. “When looking closer, you may notice small details, like advertisements in the city and small posters pasted all around, as well as children playing tag!”
Damien Butler (Mechanical Engineering) earned the Gold Award for his piece, “Absolution.”
“It’s about the struggle of existing in spaces that market themselves barren and lifeless and trying to nurture the sparks of life that you can see,” Butler wrote in his submission.
Ben Hawkins, associate professor of biomedical and electrical engineering, received the Silver Award for his submission, “Forward from Failure,” which shows how a failed chemical etching process yielded beautiful images.
Jaclyn Brodersen (Mechanical Engineering and Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies) and Jack Butler (Mechanical Engineering) were awarded Best Sculpture for their piece, “Phylogenesis.”
“Our submission is a visual exploration of the iterative process inherent in engineering, intertwined with the beauty found in the patterns of nature and human creation,” they described.
Joshua Gottschalk (biomedical engineering) received the Dean’s Appreciation Award for his submission, “Cerebral Reconstruction.”
By Taylor Villanueva
