BINGHAMTON, NY -- The Binghamton University Art Museum will host an opening reception and public lecture at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 7, to highlight, “Quiet Cruelties: Prints, Sculpture, and Unique Works on Paper by Rimer Cardillo.” The exhibition, featuring ambiguous printed imagery of insects including butterflies, moths, wasps and grasshoppers, will remain on display through Saturday, March 23, in room 213 of the Fine Arts Building. Both the exhibition and the opening reception are free and open to the public.

“Quiet Cruelties” draws on four decades of Cardillo’s artistic production. A professor of art at SUNY New Paltz, Cardillo fled to the U.S. in 1979, after experiencing years of military rule in Uruguay. He combines a range of printing methods and techniques, from woodcut, engraving and etching, to aquatint, mezzotint and silkscreen, to create enigmatic visual statements that feature insects rather than individuals. Here, butterflies, moths, wasps and grasshoppers suggest power and dispassion, weakness and vulnerability.

A small exhibition of early modern illustrated books of natural history, on loan from the Special Collections of the Binghamton University Library, will be on view near the exhibit. Additional upcoming events include “An Entomologist Considers Art,” a gallery talk with Julian Shepherd, associate professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University, at noon Tuesday, Feb. 19, in room 213 of the Fine Arts Building.

In addition, a workshop with Marla Coppolino, Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization, titled, “An Introduction to Biological Illustration: Its History, Uses, and Some Methods,” will be held from 1-5 p.m. Saturday, March 2, in room 213 of the Fine Arts Building. Advance registration is required, along with a $20 fee. To register for this workshop, call 607-777-2634.

For more information, contact the Binghamton University Art Museum at 607-777-2634 or artmuseum.binghamton.edu.