News

Winners of the Anatomical Society International Undergraduate Anatomy Arts & Crafts Competition 2024

Apr 22, 2025
Congratulations to the winners of the Anatomical Society International Undergraduate Anatomy Arts & Crafts Competition 2024!

This award was run in conjunction with the University of Glasgow and led by Dr Ourania Varsou.  We wish to thank Dr Varsou and her team for their work on this prize. A virtual exhibition of all entries can be viewed here: https://www.glasgowaac.com/exhibition-2024.html


WAD art competition
The winners were:
  • 1st prize Erika Gutenmacher, a final-year student in Applied Anatomy at the University of Bristol, won the competition for their work title ‘Playing the Game’. Erika described the inspiration for her piece in her own words “The art piece Playing the Game explores the competitive nature of evolution, inspired by Charles Darwin's theories of natural selection. The back features a pelican, nodding to Darwin's finch illustrations related to adaptive evolution. The King of Hearts symbolises humanity's dominance in the animal kingdom, reflecting millions of years of progress. In the centre, the skeletal structures of a human and chimpanzee foot illustrate their morphological similarities, highlighting the ongoing debate on the evolution of bipedalism. While the chimpanzee foot is specialised for grasping, the human foot, having lost this ability, is optimised for bipedal locomotion. This artwork invites viewers to contemplate the complexities of bipedal evolution and the anatomical changes that shaped humanity's current evolutionary standing.”
  • 2nd prize was awarded to Zynab Hussain, a third-year medical student at Sheffield University. Regarding their artwork they said “I was inspired by the concept of evolution, particularly how we as a species evolved and had many different variations such as the homo erectus. I used fineliner on paper.”
  • 3rd prize was awarded to Meg Knott, a second-year student studying Graduate Entry Medicine at the University of Warwick who said “My inspiration was Michelangelo's painting The Creation of Man. I have always loved this painting and the immense detail Michelangelo put into the anatomical accuracy of his pieces. I wanted to play with the the concept of the 'evolution' of our knowledge about human anatomy to create a piece that captures the artistic nature of his work, whilst exposing the human anatomy beneath the skin. Additionally, it felt quite fitting to use an art piece that has stayed so relevant 'through the lens of time' as my inspiration. The piece is therefore titled If Michelangelo had an anatomy degree.”