By Emily Markanich

[email protected]

Students gathered outside Rasdall Gallery in the Student Center Thursday night, munching on hors-d’oeuvres before wandering through the art gallery and casting their vote at the Student Activities Board’s Young Artists Exhibit reception.

Undecided freshman Robert Fischer was one of the artists whose work was presented and voted on by fellow students.

Fischer won the judges’ choice award for his six pieces in the gallery. Two were stencils of friends he described as “portraits of men … to show the valleys and planes of the face.”

From far away, a third piece featuring one of Fischer’s friends could be mistaken as a water color painting, but it was actually dyed fabric that Fischer cut out, dyed, pieced together and sewed onto a canvas.

Fabric was a common medium in Fischer’s work.

“I really like working with fabric and sewing,” he said. Two of his pieces were self-portraits that used a combination of fabrics and oil paint.

One portrayed Fischer decked out in an assortment of colored fabrics, each of which represented a woman in art history.

The sixth piece in Fischer’s section of the art gallery was a photograph of his little sister eating a donut with a double exposure of paint swirling around her, he said.

Artistic endeavors with his sibling while growing up provoked him to develop his skills while attending duPont Manual High School in Louisville, Ky., Fischer said.

Taylor Hamilton, the director of SAB’s Cultural Arts Committee, and her team were responsible for putting on the art contest and exhibit.

“This is the third year in a row we’ve had the event,” Hamilton, an international studies junior, said. “We’ve had the event several times in the past but we decided to revive it a little bit and have the voting system at the event.”

In the past, the voting had taken place prior to the event, so only the two artists that won were shown, Hamilton said.

This year, all 10 artists who made it past the preliminary judges round were presented.

“Our primary goal was … to bring more people into the gallery and even if they don’t win, they get to display their art in a professional setting,” Hamilton said.

At the end of the event, three winners were presented, one chosen by the judges and the other two by the students who attended. According to SAB’s website, the winners received $750 scholarships to Kennedy’s Art Store.

Chemical engineering freshman Cecelia Tio and architecture sophomore Lauren Delventhal won the two student choice awards.