Shawn Hall’s A State of Natural Abstraction expo lives up to its name in these latest of her ongoing techno-baroque explorations of the elemental world around us. Bigger and bolder than much of her past work, paintings like Pink Head in the Cumulus, left – a crimson, mauve and azure phantasm of clouds and sunspots swirling in a pastel sky – suggest whimsical natural forces at work in the cosmos. But Coy Nematode returns us to ground zero with an elegant take on those tiny worms who seem to be biding their time, awaiting the day when they inherit the earth after we render it unsuitable for human habitation. In Hall’s view, Ma Nature – and her elegant sense of humor – inevitably win out in the end. ~Bookhardt /A State of Natural Abstraction: Paintings by Shawn Hall, Through May 27, Cole Pratt Gallery, 3800 Magazine St., 891-6789.