Imagine walking into a dimly lit cave. Your senses heighten as you look around the dark area. Engulfed in silence, you become entranced by your surroundings.

Your eyes focus on the brightly-painted abstract artwork on the walls. You stumble onto sculptured figures resembling artifacts. You exit into an open area filled with paintings portraying mounds created by ancient societies.

In actuality, this is not an adventure into a cave, but an art show in the Holmes Student Center gallery. This particular show was developed by four graduate students in art at Northern Illinois University. Their work is on display until Friday, February 12.

"Ring of Seven," represented by oval ceramic figures colored with pink, white and gray were placed on a slanting wedge. This piece was created to resemble ancient artifacts, said sculptor Dave Harton.

Harton developed his fascination with artifacts while on digs in Mexico, Japan and the Middle East. Being frustrated by restrictions placed on removing artifacts from a site, Harton decided to create his own.

This particular piece was developed by implementing a combination of methods. Harton sculpted the upper portions of the bowl-like structures by hand and shaped their bases on the wheel. Harton then painted the white and gray structures with pink paint, because he liked the effect.

"Hopefully, the viewer will see things that he/she wants to see," Harton said of his work. The sculptor has received several comments on the particular forms of the objects he created. One viewer said "Rings of Seven," projected a religious image, while another said there were sexual connotations in this piece. Harton said someone even suggested he use the seven "bowls" as jello molds.

Dave Reninger created a well-designed painting with "Incubator." The painter employed the concept of depth and texture with a patterned background. Organic matter is pieced together using a complementary color scheme dominated by bright yellow.

The painter said the piece was symbolic of its title. With the use of color, texture and organic subject matter, there is a certain warmth emitted from the painting that can be compared to his other works in the show.

"It (art) is like music where you have a simple phrase and repeat it in a lot of ways," said Reninger.

After setting up the show, Reninger and King Siu discovered the former's subject matter in a painting resembled the design placed together in a sculpture by the latter.

Siu, a first-year graduate student in painting, utilized organic matter by designing charred wood, shaping iron nails and growing live grass in his sculptures because he considered this particular art to be tangible and personal.

Originally from China, Siu expressed the effect different surroundings have on his artwork. He said the certain characteristics associated with climates in the spring and winter create a strong influence on his visual perception and taste.

Siu said he is intrigued by the grass in the spring and charred wood in the winter. The simplicity of the subject matter adds to the effectiveness of his organic sculpture. "I don't want people to associate my work with some narrative content."

However, painter Wes Kramer brings narrative content together using an abstract, boldy simplified process. Kramer's eight paintings depict mounds created by ancient civilizations in the Midwest.

His work is abstract, yet the story behind the mounds and the forms that exist or have existed in ancient history is basic to the universality of society, Kramer said.

"What's interesting to me is people here made mounds. And almost every society in the world, made mounds, pyramids or Stonehenge," he said.

The separate efforts of the four artists represented in the relationship between the artwork and the surroundings adds unity to the overall experience.