STARS

A new show at STARS highlights the abstract paintings of Cynthia Hawkins and is largely focused on a body of work from the late 1990s. The show’s title, Natural Things, is also an ongoing series of works for Hawkins, who looks to nature for inspiration for her abstract forms. Her colorful paintings have a kind of straightforwardness to them — floating shapes levitate on solid colored backgrounds — and yet, they surprise with subtle hue shifts and surprising plays with…