Launch Gallery is proud to present two solo exhibitions exploring the beauty, complexity and fragility of our natural world. Hiroko Yoshimoto and Yumiko Glover use their observational tools and personal perspectives to document nature’s current challenges while celebrating its vitality.

Influenced over the past 10 years by important ecology writers Edward O. Wilson and Rachel Carson, Hiroko Yoshimoto has focused on the natural beauty and splendor around her Ventura, CA home. Through her masterful abstract visual language, Hiroko has dedicated her practice to documenting biological diversity, sketching countless examples of source material that have yielded over 130 painted canvases, many twice the size of her petite but determined Japanese frame. In her second solo exhibition at Launch Gallery, she presents these recent paintings of nature through a keen and discerning eye sharing thoughtful observations intended to raise awareness of and foster hope for our current climate challenge.

In the play Anthony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare, Cleopatra is described as a woman of “infinite variety,” a woman of such complexity and rich character who can awe, mesmerize, challenge, excite, and intrigue anyone by her infinite creative mind and being.

The phrase “infinite variety” encouraged me to look into Nature that can create endless variations and permutations of life forms. I have painted more than 130 canvases entitled Biodiversity. Indeed, life’s infinite variety and richness bring us a sense of wonder of its abundance and vitality to every corner of our planet. To me, that is the success of life on Earth. I hope my paintings reflect celebration and wonder of such a fecund Earth of today, but with an urgent plea for sustaining it for the future.

Hiroko Yoshimoto was born and raised in Japan and moved to Los Angeles as a teenager. She has BA and MA degrees in Art from UCLA. She became a US citizen in the 1970’s. She taught studio art at Ventura College as a full time professor until her retirement and at the same time worked as an exhibiting artist. Her interest in painting has been in appreciation of nature focusing on ecological concerns. He ongoing theme “Biodiversity Series” amassed more than 130 canvases in abstract oil paintings, watercolors and drawings. Other than in Southern California, she has exhibited in New York, Tokyo, Osaka, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Seattle, Houston, Ashland, Denver, and other locations. Her studio is in Ventura, California.