One uses a wedding dress to explore like a thread to bind the use of different media, another bends wood into an irresistible structure and another uses intricate patterns to explore both personal and political history.

The new artworks are part of one of Oakland County’s top cultural events every year, the annual Graduate Degree Exhibition of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, which opens to the public Sunday, April 23, and will be on display through May 14.

Fundamentally, metro Detroit's two most prominent art schools — the College for Creative Studies and the Cranbrook Academy of Art — couldn't be more different. While both are located off of Woodward Avenue, they're worlds apart: CCS in the city's core, and Cranbook in leafy, suburban Bloomfield Hills.

Of course, an environment inevitably informs an artist's work, and it's easy to see this with Cranbrook's annual graduate student exhibition. While CCS's student work may have more of an emphasis on technical virtuosity, Cranbrook's student art tends to be — much like its wooded campus — sprawling, often featuring elaborate, large-scale installation work.

This year's show features the work of the 64 graduates from Cranbrook's two-year Master's program. The school has 10 departments,with fewer than a dozen students in each. Cranbrook's is the only completely studio-based program in the country — there are no classes. Students live and work on campus, working directly with their respective department's artist-in-residence.