Robert Heininger believes inspiration surrounds artists at every moment.

Heininger's exhibit, 7:7, is a culmination of several revelations from the Bible, John Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Divine Comedy.

The collection of 14 paintings illustrates the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues.

The display began Monday and will continue until Saturday in the lobby of the Patterson Building.

"I tried to put as many layers in it as possible," Heininger said. "I think as an artist, you record, entertain and with luck, teach."

Heininger, a 2002 graduate, said most of his pieces as a Penn State student were drawings.

He considers this collection of work as his first stab at painting.

"Everything else up to this I see as practice," Heininger said.

'Everything else' included his stint as a part-time police officer in Cape May, N.J., during summer breaks and as a volunteer for Alpha Fire Company in State College.

"I figure most artists and painters can't live off their art and most police officers have side jobs," Heininger said. "The police career is my stress release of being an artist."

Heininger spent 10 months researching his paintings' content, and worked on them as part of an independent studies course taught by John Bowman, an assistant professor of arts and architecture.

Bowman said his former student abstractly captured each deadly sin -- lust, greed, sloth, pride, envy, gluttony and wrath -- and each virtue -- purity, generosity, diligence, humility, temperance, prudence and forgiveness -- with an alluring precision.

"Each piece is unique to itself, but they all have a common language," Bowman said. "There's a lot going on in the paintings. He really came up with a unique visual language for [7:7]."

Those fascinated by dark imagery will be entranced with the sins, Bowman said. Heininger gets the opposite impression, however.

"People stand in front of the virtues more because they get grossed out by the sins," Heininger said.