Shelby Huber of McPherson, Kansas, is building a strong résumé for her job search this spring. The Sterling College senior received two awards from juried art competitions over the past few months and continues to gain recognition for her paintings.

“Release,” originally painted for her Painting 3 class, received honorable mention in the international show “Mind, Spirit & Emotion” on Art-Competition.net. Other artists who won awards in “Mind, Spirit & Emotion” hail from El Salvador, Italy, Maldives and the U.S.A.

Huber’s painting titled “Under Wraps” received a Merit Award in the Artists of Northwest Arkansas’ 20^th Annual Regional Art Exhibition. Both award-winning paintings are 24-inch by 36-inch oil on canvas.

“Painting is something that I am really passionate about, so getting these awards means a lot and keeps me motivated to keep painting,” said Huber.

The 20^th Annual Regional Art Exhibition was open to seven states and yielded 385 entries from 138 artists. Only 100 works were selected for the show, so Huber was surprised when she was asked to display two of her works, “Release” and “Under Wraps.”

“Since I was competing against professionals in this show, I was shocked when both of my paintings got selected and even more surprised to receive an award. The experience as a whole of submitting work, attending the opening and the awards ceremony was very gratifying and encouraging for me,” said Huber.

Her painting professor, Assistant Professor of Art Hanna Kozlowski-Slone, began encouraging Huber last year to enter into national juried shows.

“Not only has Shelby become a highly skilled painter, but her conceptual direction has also evolved and become more sophisticated. Both the technical precision and expressive nature of her work speak to a wide audience, and I’m not in the least surprised that her paintings are beginning to garner national attention,” said Kozlowski-Slone.

Huber is majoring in art and design with concentrations in graphic design, illustration, painting and drawing, and studio art. She will graduate from Sterling in May.

Sterling College is a Christ-centered, four-year college located in Sterling, Kansas, with a mission to develop creative and thoughtful leaders who understand a maturing Christian faith. For more information, visit www.sterling.edu.