Linda Arreola "Almost Home" and Rochelle Botello "Wild Child" exhibitions at LAUNCH LA

LAUNCH Gallery is proud to present solo exhibitions by Linda Arreola and Rochelle Botello whose work celebrates an exploration of life through contemporary abstract painting, drawing and sculpture. Linda Arreola’s Almost Home, draws on her appreciation of architecture and form, specifically ancient Mesoamerican architecture, as the underlying foundation of her work. Her paintings are built using primary colors and elemental geometric forms to construct maps for, and recall memories of, her life’s artistic journey. In Wild Child, Rochelle Botello’s series of drawings materialize after hours in the studio surrendering control and embracing the unknown while putting ink, graphite and acrylic paint to paper. Her new sculpture, born from less permanent materials like cardboard, wood, tape and paper, examines the relationship between form and space while mirroring the fragility and inevitability of life. "Linda Arreola presents Almost Home a new series of paintings and sculptures that reference the idea of a journey. Moving toward this new destination, Linda is returning to the beginning while seeking a sense of completion and ultimately finding a place of belonging. "In this series I introduce two concepts. The first concept is that the paintings include what I call, “word bubbles”, similar to the ones seen in comic strips holding the words spoken. The “word bubbles” call attention to the idea of speaking, or having something to say. A voice perhaps from the subconscious suggesting an inner journey." "The second concept are pieces that include a single word or hieroglyphic-like word symbols. The words mainly reference “street names”. These street names, are of familiar or significant pathways I have frequented. These street names tie together the place I exist, creating a communion of neighborhoods and people signifying a locale and placing my existence in a particular territory. Together, the works are not only expressions of an interior and exterior journey but are also intended to provoke inquiry into who we are and where we are from." A new sculpture and drawings in Rochelle Botello’s Wild Child further express her ability and willingness to surrender to the present moment of discovery, wonder and curiosity. She is embracing the unknown. The result is an honest and original record of our time and place. Rochelle is fascinated in the special, individual space between time and memory, the known and the unknown. "I construct sculptures through intuitive impulses while playing with the relationship between form and space. I use materials such as cardboard, wood, tape and paper that retain an ephemeral quality that I find equally compelling and absurd. The impermanence of my forms mirrors the wondrous inevitability of life. "Like my sculptural work, my drawings evolve from an intuitive impulse. I make a mark. Then make another. I allow each mark to inform the next move. I build up the surface by overlapping lines, shapes and spontaneous gestures. Through this process of overlap, repetition and movement, the compositions suggest the act of being present. Here and now, time and memory. "The new work reveals states of both being and becoming that echo the contradictions of everyday life: the real and the imagined, control and letting go, strength and vulnerability, stability and instability."

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Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3227121-0

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