Artist Ericka Walker has found inspiration in old printing styles for her new exhibit on display at North Georgia College & State University.

Her "Work!" exhibit will be on display at the Dahlonega institution's Bob Owens Art Gallery through Sept. 16.

Walker was selected as the Best in Show at the 2010 Printmaking Biennale, a national competition held at North Georgia.

"The prints and transfers in this show are representative of my recent interest in late-19th and early 20th century lithographic propaganda posters, and the graphic histories of the continuing polemics of war, industry and agriculture," said Walker, who is an assistant art professor at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Canada.

"They are partially related to my personal history, but also to larger histories of nationalism, belligerence, growth and progress and the incorporation into these equations of words like duty, pride or patriotism.

"I think I have an uneasy relationship to these concepts, and I certainly see the same ideas perpetuated, just as the residue of turn-of-the-century events continues to influence today's social, economic and political climates."

This exhibit will include eight, finished prints and dozens of transfer plates designed by Walker.

"Some of the images portrayed include machinery and tools from my family's agrarian, military-service and industrial working past, as well as quotations and slogans from political or military documents and speeches," Walker said.

"These range from peace treaties, to first-hand accounts of soldiers and scientists, to speeches regarding the concerns of the then-impending, now entrenched, military-industrial complex."

North Georgia will host an opening reception on Thursday at the Owens gallery. The reception and exhibit are free and open to the public.