Intricate patterns of bullets, ink, thread, and terrestrial mollusks lie on display in SF State’s Martin Wong Gallery in the Fine Arts Building.

“Snails,” by junior textiles major Anette Huelley, is a complex work of embroidered fabric with a repeating pattern of different colored snails. The piece is of stunning size, with a brown backdrop, and was meant, said the artist, to be folded in a certain manner.

“In my work, I just like to go for it and see what happens,” said Huelley, 21, who was inspired to create the piece because of her job at SF State’s greenhouse, where she was asked to kill snails.

“I just can’t [kill them],” she said, adding that she usually lets them go outside.

Huelly is one of 11 SF State students participating in “Systems, Units, Repeat: Repeat Patterns for Fine Art and Design,” an art exhibit that opened on Oct. 17, but spawned from a Textile Experimental Techniques class held last semester.

One attendee, Art Education senior Kellie Simms, said she was impressed by the work on display, reminiscing about a sparkling work of cassette tape and wire she remembered artist Jennifer Ferre making during the class.

“I think she wove this whole thing,” Simms said as she looked at the piece. “It must have taken her forever.”

According to Huelley, it did, but helped her to recognize natural patterns in nature.

“A lot of it was experimenting with Photoshop,” Heully said. “It was really about repeats and patterns and training the eye to see them.”

The class, which is not being taught this semester, was a departure from more traditional textile courses, which, Heully said, deals primarily with fabric.

Like many others in the exhibit, Heully’s piece also incorporated math, conjuring the work of artists like the famed M.C. Escher.

“I remember the math,” said Jeff Taylor, a beard toting Starbucks employee, who is a former business major and Heully’s boyfriend. “I helped her with it.”

Although Taylor took a break from school to pursue work in the spring of 2006, he continues to frequent student art exhibits and said people should attend art events on campus because it is so convenient.

“So many people walk by the art building all the time,” said the 22-year-old, who walks by the Fine Arts building when he gets coffee at Cafe Rosso. “It only takes five minutes to check it out, and it’s fun.”

Other works featured a range of offbeat elements. An untitled interactive piece by Amanda Abrego used the self portraits of exhibit attendees and an enormous green pattern printed on wallpaper. Another piece by Clare Szydlowski used rust and silk screening to create elaborate patterns on cylindrical tubes that were cut in half.

The exhibit, though already open for viewing, had a formal reception on Oct. 23 in the Martin Wong Gallery, but will continue to run through Nov. 2 in room 286 of the Fine Arts Building.

For more information visit www.sfsu.edu/~artdept.