Mumbling words and frantic eyes were among the crowd during the re-opening of the Cerritos College art gallery on Wednesday, where artists Sharon Allicotti and Patty Wickman displayed their work.

The crowd gathered at the opening reception at 6 p.m. to a table of food and refreshments that were offered from the art gallery staff.

The exhibition, which was made up of primarily pastels, drawings, and paintings, seemed to take its viewer’s captive with its raw impressions of reality.

Art gallery director, Marcus Adams, was particularly interested in the works because he felt the pieces were something that students could relate to.

“Sharon’s works have brought on a deep emotional twist,” Adams said, ” where you have had at one point or another, intense emotional experiences.”

Wickman’s work portrayed places in society that are often displayed as “comfortable” or “familiar” and were turned into imitations of solitude.

Similar to Wickman’s pieces, Allicotti’s shows the beauty of intimacy and isolation when a person escapes from life and returns to the purity of silence in the desert.

Allicotti is currently an instructor at Laguna College of Art and Design.

“I chose to do the desert atmosphere because I feel it’s symbolic in some ways. It’s similar to the profound mystery of the mind,” Allicotti said.

Many art students were present to take in the sights as well. Julie Hernandez, an Art major, was most impressed with Wickman’s work.

“It’s very strangely simple, yet full of the unknown,” Hernandez said. Wickman and Allicoti’s art will be up in the art gallery from January 14 through February 6. For more information on the exhibit, you can visit the gallery website at www.Cerritos.edu/Gallery.