LOS ANGELES, CA.- LAUNCH Gallery is presenting two solo exhibitions celebrating the beauty and wonder of the natural world in two-dimensional and three-dimensional formats. Hiroko Yoshimoto finds inspiration from the ‘Father of Biodiversity’, E.O Wilson and Rachel Carson, considered among the finest nature writers of the twentieth century. In 2012, encouraged by these activist scholars, Hiroko began a series of watercolors that soon evolved to large canvases and has grown to over 300 artworks. This ongoing series, titled Biodiversity honors the work of these important early environmentalists through abstract visual representations of colors and lines, movements, and surprises.

Inspired by the sensuality of the natural world, Cj Jilek appropriates ceramic botanical forms with their openly displayed reproductive elements as a metaphor for human sexuality. The biomorphic forms in this series, Cross Pollination, lead the viewer to a subconscious association between nature and the human instinct of attraction.

Cj Jilek grew up outside of the Chicago area and found she had a few great loves: ceramics, travel, and the natural world. Cj earned her undergraduate degree in ceramics from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1995 and began her life’s journey of discovery and teaching. Cj loves teaching ceramics for the opportunity it allows for a tactile experience as well as conceptual design. Her curiosity of the natural world and her love for travel brought her to the MFA program at Utah State University that provided her the opportunity to travel internationally while expanding her understanding of both ceramics and the diversity and beauty of the natural world. Cj has managed to create a nomadic lifestyle in her ceramics career and is always looking for her next workshop opportunity. Cj Jilek is currently calling Southern California home and is a ceramics instructor for Chaffey, Saddleback, Mt Sac and Fullerton Colleges.

Hiroko Yoshimoto is a visual artist residing in Southern California. She was born and raised in Japan and moved to Los Angeles as a teen. She earned a BA and MA (summa cum laude) in Art from UCLA. Hiroko is concurrently exhibiting at the Santa Paula Museum of Art. ‘Hiroko Yoshimoto – New Work’ in on view in Santa Paula through November 2, 2022. Hiroko was one of the founders of Studio 83, an artists’ co-op group and gallery in Ventura, CA and founded the Ventura College Friends of the Arts, a non-profit art scholarship fund-raising organization. She taught studio art as a tenured professor at Ventura College, Ventura CA for over 30 years. Hiroko has a long history of exhibitions nationally and internationally and is included in numerous private, corporate, and museum collections.