Since 1972, Cynthia Hawkins has consistently painted abstractly and in series, exploring diverse literary, philosophical, and scientific influences through work that is rich in color and meaning. For her first one-person exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery, Hawkins will present new paintings from her ongoing series Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D (2023–). In these works, the form of specific maps direct investigations into color and light, providing both an underlying compositional structure and a symbolic vocabulary that plays out on the surface. By manipulating the same maps within each work and across the series, Hawkins provides a consistent point of entry that guides the viewer to engage in extended looking.

Hawkins’s recent interest in maps originated with studies of Maori and Marshall Island stick charts––an ancient form of marine cartography that relied on memory and bodily navigation. While thinking about these alternative forms of mapmaking, Hawkins rediscovered preparatory drawings for A Walk in 4D, a sculpture she made in 1979 that explored similar ideas. At the time, Hawkins was reading about astronomy, physics and ideas of the fourth dimension: the mathematical extension of the concept of three-dimensional space. To illustrate this concept, Hawkins mapped a particular walk (from her apartment on West 83rd Street to the 86th Street subway station) and raised it on a 45-degree angle—the angle that commonly represents the movement of light through space and time. The drawings that preceded A Walk in 4D have become the maps that orient Hawkins’s current body of work.

Each painting is executed in layers, beginning with a single map laid on the background that is then transformed into new iterations, forming a wide range of shapes and structures in vibrant, complementary colors. A grid is wielded to diverse effect across the works in the exhibition, from the fine, mesh-like grid in Chapter 3: Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D #7 to the dramatically enlarged grid in Chapter 3: Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D #3. In some paintings the grid is positioned parallel to the picture plane, while others are sharply angled to heighten the perspectival intensity. Amorphous shapes undulate between density and transparence and orbs of various sizes float between the layers, further disrupting the spatial legibility. Hawkins has paid particular attention to how the shape and structure of each composition informs color, which shifts subtly as different elements meet and touch.

Hawkins articulates the final layer of each painting in oil bar, isolating fragments of the map and drawing them onto the canvas by hand. The medium of oil bar is rough, almost rustic, and it allows the intuition and spontaneity of Hawkins’s markings to come to the fore while providing a textural contrast between the smooth finish achieved by the brush. Balancing on the surface, these navigating lines enhance the depth achieved by the preceding layers and bring the fourth dimension into sharp relief.