Ingrained Chiho Harazaki Adore Kaoru Mansour June 29 – July 22, 2024 Opening Reception, Saturday, June 29, 5 - 8pm LAUNCH Gallery 170 S. La Brea Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90036 LAUNCH Gallery is proud to present two solo shows of Los Angeles based artists, Kaoru Mansour and Chiho Harazaki, both immigrants from Japan, who bring a wealth of creativity and life experiences to their unique art-making perspectives. Chiho Harazaki continues to evolve artistically by tapping into her traditional Japanese upbringing through the creation of contemporary contemplative figures in modern American society. In her new series, titled Ingrained, Chiho creates intimate charcoal and graphite narratives that convey contemporary life in her new home with a secret undertone. In my figurative art series Ingrained, I express my uncertainty, insecurity, and confusion arising from values ingrained within me by the cultures I have been shaped by. My works contain traditional patterns from my home country, patterns which evoke within me a melancholy feeling like an unbreakable cage, or like tattoos on my body that cannot be removed. I seek to discover my own identity through my art, synthesizing elements of Eastern and Western, traditional and modern culture." ~ Chiho Harazaki In her new series, Adore, Kaoru Mansour continues her ambitious artistic journey creating hybrids of figurative and abstract painting styles to represent the complex human condition of contemporary American culture from her unique multidisciplinary perspective. "I start with washi paper on the canvas or wooden panel, and then make gestural markings or ‘stains’ with acrylic paint. I then begin to add abstract markings with colored pencil and regular pencil. While I am drawing these abstract shapes, some figurative shapes come to mind and then a story emerges.  The inspiration for the title “Adore” came from spending more time with my aging mother and her cat. The last couple of years I have spent more time with my mother in Japan. After recently losing my father, my mother began living alone for the first time at age 88. She has a former stray cat who is extremely frightened and shy around strangers. Observing this relationship between my fragile mother and her equally fragile and aloof cat, always moves me deeply in my heart and feeds my creativity." ~ Kaoru Mansour About the Artists Chiho Harazaki was born and raised in the countryside of Japan. Spending time at the studio of her uncle, a renowned rock sculptor, Harazaki's interest in art was stimulated at an early age. After moving to Los Angeles, she began using adhesive tape as her art medium while developing her practice in drawing, painting, and installation. Her use of precisely cut adhesive tape gives her work the feel of modern graphic design while also lending itself to works reminiscent of traditional Japanese arts like woodcut and papercutting. Perceiving life as a first-generation immigrant, Harazaki explores her own identity through her art. Growing up in a small village in Hyogo prefecture, Japan, Kaoru Mansour was always interested in creating things from scratch. Her earliest memory of making art is gluing heart-shaped cutouts to the walls of her parents' house at the age of seven. She studied sciences in college but dropped out after two years and began working in graphic design while singing at local nightclubs in Kobe, eventually earning herself a contract with RCA records in Japan. Once her contract ended in 1986, she moved to Southern California where she soon became a part of the experimental music scene. Despite her musical endeavors, she maintained a passion for creating visual art and enrolled in extracurricular classes at the Otis Art Institute. She has been working as full-time visual artist since 1994.