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Medium: Cotton cross stitch
A representation of knockout strains of the human pathogen Talaromyces marneffei generated during my PhD. The ‘fun’ (read: tediousness) of stitching this mimics the ‘fun’ (read: frustration) of generating these strains who don’t like to produce spores, or grow much compared to the type strain (bottom inoculum). To-scale.
Brianna Steed

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The entry window for the Competition has ended and voting is now open!
Vote for your favourites from now until October 25. Winners will be announced at the end of Semester 2.
https://melbourneuni.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_daIHbTFpP6lbDwx

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Medium: Graphite pencil on paper.
I’ve always been fascinated by taxonomy and the attention to detail it requires. There is still so much unknown, so much to be discovered, and sometimes the next new species is hiding in a museum cabinet or in plain sight in your backyard, all it takes is a closer look.
Marianne Coquilleau

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Medium: Charcoal and graphite on paper.
The Spix's Macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii) is one among the many species recently declared extinct by the IUCN. How many more species are we going to lose before we finally become worthy caretakers of our planet? Perhaps, their extinction serves as a permanent reminder that there's still a lot more to do.
Neal Liu

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Medium: Photography
I took the photo whilst snorkeling in a lake on remote Kakaban Island, Kalimantan (Indonesian part of Borneo). The island is a beautiful jungle with a lake in the center, full of different species of stunning and stingless jellyfish inviting you for an underwater dance.
Dany Zemeitat

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Note: This work is not eligible for voting.
Medium: Cotton cross stitch
My piece gives a comical aspect to the importance of a function we are now required to perform multiple times daily. This piece was completed from a pattern created by the Etsy seller StitchAloft.
Christine Baggs

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Medium: Oil on canvas
A physical barrier is the most effective protection against COVID-19. I painted it the on the day before Stage 4 lockdown and mandatory mask order, to commemorate that extraordinary time, remind me about this new normal, and pay respects to frontline healthcare workers, who risked their lives to protect us.
Shengsheng (Jackson) Zhao

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Medium: Macro photography (Video photo series).
I took macro photographs of beautiful plants and animals on the campus during the lockdown. I was amazed by the subtle and complex structures of those flowers and leaves. They vividly enriched my study of botany and zoology and brought me lots of fun and hope during that hard time.
Shengsheng (Jackson) Zhao

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Medium: Pencil on paper
Many of our native freshwater fishes are threatened with extinction, but few are protected under law. This piece represents my research within freshwater conservation, where the native Southern Pygmy Perch is partially burnt off the page, and is being replaced by invasive Mosquitofish underneath (both bushfires and exotic species pose significant threats).
Sarah Hill

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Medium: Pen and ink
It’s easy to forget the enormous importance endosymbiotic events had for the nature and diversity of life. I have tried to illustrate such an event giving rise to some members of domain eukarya (but only ones that are fun to draw... apologies to all the protists out there).
Edith Spiers

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Medium: Pen and ink
When learning about the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA, I was taken by the idea that a single image ‘photograph 51’ could have such an impact on its understanding. Rosalind Franklin (pictured) oversaw the production of the photograph, but received very little credit at the time.
Edith Spiers

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Medium: Charcoal on paper (A1)
A depiction of life outside Earth from a completely imagined dream-like vision. A few aspects of beautiful things in a snapshot from outer space.

Studying astronomy, biology, chemistry demonstrated Earth, a speck in this expanding universe, I can’t help but look up and see wonderlands somewhere far off.
Jade Nguyen

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Medium: Graphite and coffee
This piece was inspired by the detail in which we observed the human body in our biology classes, and pays homage to the anatomical drawings of Andreas Vesalius. It reflects my intrigue with the intricacies of the human body - how marvellous and complicated and fragile we all are.
Kyla Fritz

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Medium: Oil on masonite
Seeing the Botany building change in colour and mood throughout the year would always bring a sense of wonder and inspiration to me. It has so much beauty and soul in every season. Here it is in all its glory, full of life in early March.
Ainsley Waters

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Medium: Ceramics
In Biology we learned about genetic diversity created through random assortment, recombination, mutation, and other chance events. Just like each individual's fingerprint is unique, each cup's marbling pattern is unique- both are irreplicable.

Illiana Schuring

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0027: Single Helix (Dracaena sanderiana)

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0027: Single Helix (Dracaena sanderiana)

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Medium: Pencil on paper
The fact that interactions between DNA and the environment cause a cascading chain of biochemical processes that result in organisms that adhere to some predetermined form mystifies. I tried to capture that sense of wonder in this drawing of the helical sanderiana. The suspended rock is meant to emphasize sense of wonderment.

Gabriel Cartwright Marks

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Medium: Pen on paper
Stag with a lantern. The more we learn about other species, the more we learn about our own makeup. The knowledge we gain lights the way for innovation that will shape our future, be that through genetic manipulation, disease prevention or protecting our environment.
Niesha Baker

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As a keen student of invertebrate behaviour and function, mantids hold a particular fascination for me. Their incredible functional adaptations and angular limbs give them an almost robotic appearance. To capture this 'mechanized' quality, I constructed this mantid from old computer parts and other scrap metal.
Rebecca Rasmussen

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As an undergraduate fieldwork volunteer I spent many days sitting in the rain watching bell miners eating sugary lerps on Eucalyptus leaves and listening to them ping at each other. This piece was made with watercolours on cold-pressed paper, giving the work some natural texture.
Rebecca Rasmussen

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Medium: Digital drawing
As an undergraduate I work alongside the amazing members of the Urban Light Lab, led by Dr Therésa Jones. Creating a black-and-white mug featuring all the lab's study animals was a challenge in scale and composition.
Rebecca Rasmussen

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Medium: Watercolour
The lotus is a symbol of fertility and I've depicted it here in the shape of the female reproductive tract. Femme Fatale indeed.
Deidre Mattiske

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Medium: Ink and acrylic paint on rice paper.
In spring and summer, jewel beetles would gather on their host plants and enjoy the feast of the flower! This painting depicted them feeding on their host plants, Eucalyptus trees. I blended the oriental element in the beautiful scene of my study animals by painting it in ink washing style.
Lu-yi Wang

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Medium: Paper
This piece is a series of hand cut paper beetles that capture only a few of over 350,000 species within the taxonomic order Coleoptera. I am currently studying biology, and coincidentally learnt about the astounding variety of beetles within my first lecture of the semester.
Amelia Parsons

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Medium: Mechanical pencil on paper
This is a lesser long-eared bat (Nyctophilus geoffroyi) that I drew. Bats are often portrayed negatively, but they are very ecologically important (and cute), as pollinators and regulators of insect numbers.
Jessica Keem

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Medium: Watercolour
This is a painting of the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium. The battle to control and eradicate this microscopic beast has been drawn out over 65 years and still continues today. This painting highlights both currently-used and novel control strategies. These include: blood-stage targeting drugs, insecticide-treated bed nets, vaccination and gene drive.
Sarah Farrell

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Medium: Pen on paper
This is the moment when a sperm first touches an egg. After studying reproduction and development for many years I still find the start of new life an amazing biological process.
Deidre Mattiske

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Medium: Charcoal on paper
Excessive pollutants destroy our ability to reproduce. However, modern technology can circumvent this crisis through developmental research, which I participate in, and advances in assisted reproduction. The suspended foetus in a growth tank connected to dirty, industrial-age machinery represents these ideas.
Samuel Cripps

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Medium: Digital.
This artwork depicts my head as a plant vase; where each plant symbolises my increase in understand of biology.
Ashly Wei

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Medium: Ink and paint.
While helping my kids with their van Gogh inspired home-school art class, I thought I’d give it a go too. This tree was created by blowing black ink across the page and pink paint was dabbed on with a cotton bud to create the flowers.
Nicole Middleton

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Medium: Poetry (audio reading)
From a bundle of cells to a bundle of joy, we have come a long way since we came into this world. The Lullaby is a poem written from the perspective of an infant, coming to appreciate the unconditional love, peace and serenity of their mother’s lullaby.
Benjamin Arya

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Medium: Digital drawing and photography.
I often find myself absorbed in the intricacies of the human body. As scientists, before we can begin to comprehend the natural world, we must first organise, categorise and label our way into a repertoire of concepts and vocabulary which can often impede the essence of the underlying biology. My artwork illustrates how vain our attempts, and how crude our methods, can sometimes be.
Benjamin Arya

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Medium: Pencil
I enjoy the beach and beach combing, drawing the remains of shells (and other things) is evocative of summers and daily walks along my favourite beach at Eastern View, Victoria. It reminds me that even in the vast spaces of oceans and sand, there is beauty to be found in the small things at our feet, and, even long after the occupant is dead, the trace of life remains.
Lynette O'Neill

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Medium: Digital drawing
I wanted to highlight the elegance of one of the most remarkable mammals in the Animal Kingdom, an animal both amazing for its size and complexity.
Joel Treutlein

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Medium: Watercolour
I tried to showcase the unique ways that nature mirrors itself in different settings - the bees that pollinate plants go on to produce beehives (hence the yellow around the cells) that follow a similar hexagonal shape. Also seen from turtle shells to basalt columns, the geometry of nature is truly extraordinary!
Dasuni Peiris

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Medium: Pen and pencil
The picture shows the different kind of research fields in Bioscience department at the University of Melbourne.
Vishnu Vijai Vijayakumar

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Medium: Pen and pencil
As we all are in the pandemic situation, the art gives hope that the end is not too far for this situation to change better. This would be soon achieved by a bio-sword(vaccine) to destroy this deadly virus. Let's hope for the better!
Vishnu Vijai Vijayakumar

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Medium: Embroidery
It is quite fascinating to see all the different colour butterflies and how they use this adaptation to camouflage with their surroundings. Sometimes the colour combinations are quite magnificent.
Grace Allthorpe

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Medium: Embroidery
Just a play on words using some monosaccharide terminology.
Grace Allthorpe

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Medium: Canon EOS 1500D (Photography)
I am currently learning about sexual reproduction in plants, specifically pollination. Bees are an important keystone species in the pollination of plants and because of that I get to look at and smell the beautiful flowers!!
Grace Allthorpe

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Medium: Oil on cardboard
Last semester in biology we did an online prac of a mouse dissection to investigate the digestive system. The different textures as well as the subtle changes in colour for the different organs made this a really fun subject to paint.
Maya Pigot

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Medium: Oil on cardboard
The housefly is typically regarded as an 'ugly' or 'boring' organism, so I wanted to portray it up close to highlight its many interesting features. In biology this semester I learnt that flies taste their food using their feet, which is really cool!
Maya Pigot

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Medium: Photography
On a daily walk I came across this beautiful Daisy, which shows orange pollen. Waiting for a bee highlights the importance of bees pollinating flowers because it leads to the production of fruits we can eat, and seeds that will create more plants.
Danielle Smith

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Medium: CanonM50, 50mm prime lens
Image showcasing the hard work that goes into capturing every meal.
Aakash Gupta

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Medium: CanonM50, 50mm prime lens
This macro photo take you up close in the natures laps to show how these tiny flies acts as a true source of pollination.
Aakash Gupta

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Medium: Digital drawing on iPad with Apple Pencil
I tried to draw something that represents the awe and wonder I feel when studying biology. I mean, the fact that this body - the one I see in the mirror every day - houses these beautiful, intricate biochemical processes is mind-blowing! Shreya Tekumalla

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0004: Green tree frogs in their various favourite tank positions

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0004: Green tree frogs in their various favourite tank positions

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Medium: iPhone 7
These serene creatures are not only physically charming but are notorious for their ability to use their skin as a gas exchange surface. So it is important that they enjoy a mostly moist life to do so.
Andrea Ganci

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Medium: pencil

Description: These are mainly reworkings of some old drawings. I’m not sure if the IDs are correct; I’m a botanist but I find fungi equally as beautiful as plants.
Rose Barrett

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Staff entry 003: Skull of Equus ferus caballus (horse)

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Staff entry 003: Skull of Equus ferus caballus (horse)

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Media: Charcoal and pastel. Description: I’ve drawn a few skulls over the years but this is my first horse. I’ve been collecting skulls for decades but sadly I don’t own a horse skull. I find beauty in bones, especially skulls, which are the most precious to me.
Rose Barrett

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Medium: Canon 40d DSLR camera.
A small grey kangaroo scrounging for food scraps from passing tourists pictured at Hall’s Gap Wildlife Park  highlights how the domestication of wildlife for human dissipation is redefining previous conceptions of Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection.
Cheylan Webb

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Medium: Canon 40d DSLR camera.
Sheep being shorn as part of a common Livestock farming process. Livestock farming poses as one of the greatest threats to our rising global climate as it continues to expand exponentially whilst having adverse effects on global deforestation and land clearing.
Cheylan Webb

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Medium: Canon 40d DSLR camera.
A Peacock displaying its vibraint train, is caught wandering the grounds of Hall’s Gap Wildlife Park with very strong prospects of being reintroduced into the wild, strengthening the species population heading into the anthropocene.
Cheylan Webb

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Medium: Acrylic paint with blow technique.
I present a flourishing spring bouquet on a backdrop of fading autumn leaves; a marriage of opposing phases of botanical life.
Steve Constantinos

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Medium: MS Excel.
This started from a spectroscopic analysis of a bone section. The old and new bone on the same section are like contrasting landscapes.
Michiko Mirams

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Art in Science is an art competition run during Semester 2, 2020. All undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in the School of BioSciences are eligible to submit artworks inspired by their studies. Staff can also submit, but they will not be in the running for a prize.

Art in Science is a SSAF-funded event.

Competition Purpose

This competition will showcase the diverse backgrounds and talents of individuals within the School of BioSciences. Art is often synonymous with science, whether that be through field sketches, wildlife photography or in a pattern down a microscope. A creative mind is as important to scientists as it is to artists. Similarly, great art is often inspired by great science.

During this lockdown period, many have taken to creative outlets. Creative activities have a positive effect on mental health and well-being, which is particularly important during these trying times. We would love to see some of your handiwork inspired by your studies. Any medium is welcome if it can be submitted in a 2D (including video) or audio format. So, yes, you can bust out those new iso-baking skills and snap a photo.

Prizes and Rules

Winning and the other most popular entries will be displayed in BioSciences teaching areas, and on the website. The winning entries will receive prizes of vouchers worth $200, $100, and $50 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes respectively.

Entries must be submitted between August 3 and October 2.

Entries and voting open to undergraduate and postgraduate (Honours, Masters, PhD) students enrolled in the School of BioSciences only.

Staff can enter, but they will not be in the running for a voucher.

Images, video and audio may be entered. This includes photographs, paintings, drawings, digital artworks, short videos and music. All entries to be original works by the contestant.

Maximum 3 entries per contestant.

Entries can be used by School of BioSciences for publicity and teaching purposes.

Artists will be acknowledged in all use of the artwork by School of BioSciences.

Entries must have a title, and a brief text (max. 50 words) describing how the artwork relates to the student’s studies in BioSciences.

Entries must be under 250Mb in size. If a video is over this limit, a Youtube or Vimeo link should be provided.

Submit your entry

To enter, please email your entry to biosciences-art@unimelb.edu.au, through your unimelb email address. Any entries emailed from non-unimelb email addresses will not be considered.

In the email, include:

Your full name and student number.

A title of the artwork.

A short description of the artwork that explains what you are depicting, the media you have used, and how it relates to your studies in BioSciences. Maximum 50 words.

An attached submission. If the submission has a large file size (Max. 250Mb), please share it with us through OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox. If a video is over 250Mb, please provide us with a Youtube or Vimeo URL.

View the submissions

Submissions will be uploaded here throughout the entry window (August 3 to October 2). You are encouraged to comment and cheer on your fellow artists but be aware that comments are moderated.

Vote for your favourites

Winners of the competition will be decided by a popular vote amongst students. Voting will be open October 5 - 24, with winners announced at the end of semester 2.