Jazmine Johnson/ The Towerlight

Lions, tigers, bears and a dragon filled the Center for the Arts building Thursday, Feb. 7 as a part of several new gallery exhibits.

Masters of Fine Arts candidate Colette Fu’s exhibit “We Are Tiger Dragon People” opened in the Asian Arts Gallery alongside the work of three other MFA candidates, who each presented their exhibitions.

Fu said she originally studied French language and literature as an undergraduate but became interested in her Chinese heritage after visiting the Yunnan Province in China for the first time. After returning to the United States, she studied photography and learned to create photographic pop-up books and collages.

Fu’s work in “We Are Tiger Dragon People” focuses on the many minority groups of the Yunnan Province. She said she drew on her experience as a photographer when creating the pieces.

“I can look at photographs and imagine what they look like popped up,” Fu said.

Many items of clothing Fu has collected from the Yunnan Province are also on display, including embroidered skirts and shoes.

Senior Lily Hilferty said she attended the gallery for a class assignment, but was impressed with Fu’s work.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “The colors are so vibrant and interesting.”

Jazmine Johnson/ The Towerlight

Guests were also able to attend Thursday evening’s lecture by artist Ben Whitehouse.

Whitehouse, one of the contributors to the Encountering Nature Exhibition, spoke about changing environments and nature. Many of his pieces included videos of famous locations, such as Stonehenge, shot over a 24 hour period. Viewers could watch the change in light, sky and weather in real time. The Encountering Nature Exhibition opened after the lecture. The pieces in the exhibition focused on other topics like effect of humans on the natural world.

Whitehouse described many of the pieces in the exhibition as whimsical, but also thought-provoking.

“The trees with sweaters are my favorite,” junior Emily Barnard said. “I always kill plants, but maybe if they had sweaters, they’d live.”

“We Are Tiger Dragon People” and the rest of the MFA exhibits will be open until March 16.

The Encountering Nature Exhibition will be open until April 5.