LOS ANGELES, CA.- LAUNCH Gallery is presenting solo exhibitions by Cindy Craig and Leigh Salgado, whose work honors femininity while examining women’s roles and stereotypes in contemporary society with ornate, symbolic, humorous and sometimes dark paintings and mixed media creations.

Cindy Craig’s new series of paintings and mixed media creations titled Weeping Women examines beauty, desire and the cost of being seen. Cindy asks, “What does it mean to be a woman in a society that never stops telling her how she should look.”

Weeping Women is an evocative exploration of femininity, beauty, and the often
unspoken emotional toll of society’s expectations. Through surreal imagery, playful symbolism, and poignant juxtapositions, the exhibition examines the tension between a women’s inner self and the roles she is encouraged - or compelled - to perform.

Weeping Women speaks not only to sorrow, but to the quiet contradictions of being seen and understood. Beneath the ornaments, the advertisements, and the
carefully constructed appearances are women negotiating the distance between
who they are and who the world wants them to be. At once satirical, tender and
unsettling, Weeping Women invites viewers to look beyond the surface and reflect on the pressures that shape feminine identity, the innocence that precedes them and the rediscovering of self that exists beyond the gaze of others. ~ C.C.

Cindy Craig was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and a graduate of UCLA, Cindy Craig’s work explores the hidden emotional lives of women and the stories that families, institutions, and societies have too often silenced. Through painting, collage, embroidery, and installation, she blends beauty, and psychological tension to examine domestic life, memory and grief. Beneath the seductive surfaces of her imagery lies a pointed feminist critique of the cultural expectations placed upon women and the systems that have historically dismissed their suffering.

Craig has exhibited nationally in museums and galleries in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, as well as internationally in Seoul, South Korea. Notable exhibitions include I WANT Candy: The Sweet Stuff in American Art at the Hudson River Museum, Greetings From the American Dream at the Riverside Art Museum, Liquid Los Angeles: Currents of Contemporary Watercolor at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and the National Biennial Watercolor Invitational at Parkland Art Gallery.

Her work has been featured in publications including New American Paintings, The New York Sun, Harper's Magazine, ArtWeek, American Art Collector, and Art on Paper. Craig currently lives and works in Los Angeles, where she enjoys studying Buddhism, cooking Asian cuisine, hiking in the mountains, and spending time with her family.

Leigh Salgado’s current show, Small Eruptions, channels the dormant, tectonic power of women’s energy, capturing subdued pressure before total release. Employing her signature cut-paper approach, she sets delicate layers against explosive subterranean force.

Similar to my previous solo show, ‘Pissed n’ Blissed’, anger, even rage, fuels the work included in ‘Small Eruptions’ while simultaneously reveling in the beauty and joy of our fractured world.

In this new collection, vibrant wall boxes burst with textured, frilly hand-painted paper alongside small scale, tightly contained, luminous cut-paper paintings. Each piece serves as a microcosm of potential—a brilliant burst of color framing the eruption within. ~ L.S.

Leigh Salgado is a prominent Los Angeles-based contemporary artist celebrated for her intricate, hand-cut and painted paper pieces that explore themes of femininity, sensuality, and pattern. Over a distinguished four-decade career, Salgado has held notable solo shows at venues such as LAUNCH LA, Coagula Curatorial, and the Museum of Art & History (MOAH) in Lancaster.

Her work has been featured in major museum shows, including the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, the Oceanside Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego through Cheech Marin’s renowned Chicanitas traveling exhibition. She was also commissioned by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs for a major installation at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal.