Visitors to Corson-Mudd Hall, greeted by swirls of textured color and breathtaking satellite-view images of Earth, might momentarily forget they've entered a biology building.

But who says art and science don't mix? The installation of paintings by artists Edward Heiple of Moravia and Jay Hart of Trumansburg proves there is beauty in a little mix of both.

Heiple's colorful abstractions in acrylic gel and varnish and Hart's natural- and custom-colored satellite images of various points on Earth were installed in Corson-Mudd's sunlit, expansive atrium during late spring.

The installation was brought about largely through the efforts of Ron Hoy, Cornell professor of biology. His wife, Margaret Nelson, a biological illustrator and member of the State of the Art Gallery in downtown Ithaca, connected Hoy with the artists, who agreed to display several of their pieces on campus. Some of the works are so large that, while ideal for the Corson-Mudd space, they required the use of a cherry picker for installation.

Hoy said he is delighted with the works and the subtle ways they relate to biological concepts. As a cognitive scientist, he finds both artists' work compelling because of the changes in perception that occur at different distances from the pieces. The colors first hit viewers from 40-60 feet away, he explained. But as viewers approach, textures and a sense of 3-D "pop out."

"The picture hasn't changed, but the effect on the mind has changed, because of the scale," Hoy said. That's not unlike the experience of a scientist observing, say, a biological cell at varying scales, he added.

Heiple's work is abstract but has a connection to biologists in that the forms have an "organic basis," Heiple said, noting that one of his pieces is titled "Conceptual Biology."

"I'm abstracting from a lot of different things combined together, so nothing is an explicit reference. But the overall view and complexity of the paintings mirror biological reality in a certain sense," Heiple said.

Hart noted the exhibit's contrast of the two artists' styles and methods.

"It combines [Heiple's] extreme abstraction with the realism of my work," Hart said.

The new installation replaces photographs of wildlife by President Emeritus Dale Corson, who Hoy described as "gracious" in agreeing to the new exhibit. The photographs, which have been returned to Corson, had hung in the Corson-Mudd atrium since 1982.