The senior art majors prepared their paintings for an entire year to be shown to the public.
The day before the show, the artists measured the walls so all the paintings could fit with even spaces. They also painted the borders of their work white, so it could be more presentable and gave the final details to their masterpieces.
Adam Justice, curator of art at the Polk Museum of Art, decided the winner. 
Tina Robinson, senior art major, won the John Reuter Award, which is given to the best art senior at the Art Gallery Show.
According to Robinson, she was chosen because of her painting style, modern concept and uniqueness.
Her classmates’ paintings were more realistic and traditional, and Robinson’s paintings were more abstract.
The most challenging part of participating in the show, according to Robinson, is coming up with a concept and making it cohesive to the paintings.
“For me, it was constantly changing and it kept changing up until two weeks before the show. Then I finally solidified, all my paintings expressed this one idea,” Robinson said.
She took time to finally decide her concept because she is a very “indecisive person.” Turning her thoughts into words is difficult to her.
The channel she uses is the paintings that will speak the thoughts on their own.
“My concept for this show was to do paintings of man and nature relationship. I waned to make it more modern, so I took a step forward and did man and nature relationship through warfare conflict and industrialism,” Robinson said. “It is all about how nature can overcome man’s industrialism. Even though we destroy the land, nature has still its way of regrown.”
She has always been interested in “nature regrown through destruction.”
According to Robinson, it is a concept that started since romanticism and she got hooked to this idea for many years.
To incorporate the modern concept she chose the warfare because she has friends that are part of the military, which makes her felt related.
Robinson said it is a way for people to see destruction and the regrowth of the land.
“I am very satisfied with my paintings. I would like to take a step forward and do even more to them, but for the limited amount we had to come up with a series of paintings they came out fantastic. I could not ask for anything better,” Robinson said.
Robinson said this year’s show was very competitive, because the department has “really good artists.”
“When they called my name, I was not expecting it,” Robinson said.
She feels that the art had good concepts. She was sure her paintings were solid.
“I do what I love, and I do it the best I can, because it is what I enjoy doing,” Robinson said.
