Grand Valley State University art students Bobby Manquen, Gina Pisto, Olivia Hill and Sarah Stanners will feature original artwork in their upcoming exhibition “Connecting Worlds.”

The show will open with a reception held Thursday, Dec. 8 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Stuart B. and Barbara H. Padnos Student Art and Design Gallery in the Calder Art Center on the Allendale Campus.

“Connecting Worlds” was created as a graduation for the artists who will be graduating this year. All student in the art program at GVSU go through the process of creating one-of-a-kind art and installing it in a show.

The show features a variety of mediums. Manquen and Hill specialize in illustration, Pisto works with ceramics and Stanners will showcase printmaking.

Stanners is a senior who plans to graduate this December. After graduation, Stanners hopes to find a job in the printing industry and to continue with her drawings and prints. Someday, she hopes to have her work featured in galleries.

“The skills I’ve learned in the art department will allow me to make connections between my art and different things, as well as being able to solve problems and answer questions about the world around us,” Stanners said.

Stanners had initially planned to go into illustration, but fell in love with printmaking while waiting to have an entry review for the illustration program.

“(Printmaking) allowed me to combine my love for drawing with so many new techniques and processes,” Stanners said.

Using prints instead of drawings for this show was at first challenging for Stanners because the printing process takes patience as the product does not always come out perfectly the first time.

“The work for this exhibit keeps in the theme that all my artwork has been revolving around in the last year or so, but this work particularly has made me look at the world a little differently,” Stanners said.

Stanner’s work is about the relationships animals have with humans while comparing the idea of the animal and the human animal.

“We are essentially the same, but humans put themselves on such a high pedestal and try to get so far away from their natural animalistic instincts by forming dominating relationships with some animals and fearing others,” Stanners said.