El Viaje: Featuring Kiara Aileen Machado, Rebecca Nabarrete, & Annie Marini-Genzon

LAUNCH LA is proud to present El Viaje, a celebratory survey bringing together Los Angeles–based artists Annie Marini-Genzon, Kiara Aileen Machado, and Rebecca Nabarrete. Rooted in lived experience and powered by hope and a dream, the exhibition considers journey not as a fixed destination, but as an unfolding state of becoming.

Across painting, mixed media, and sculpture, each artist charts a distinct yet interconnected path. Whether navigating geography, psychological terrain, or spiritual renewal, their practices operate as acts of mapping—tracing memory, identity, and transformation. The works hold space for inherited histories and intimate narratives while remaining in the present moment.

In El Viaje, travel is both literal and metaphorical: a revisiting of origins or a reimagining of self. Marini-Genzon, Machado,and Nabarrete engage the complexities of the past not as static archives, but as active sites of negotiation. Through gesture, surface, and symbol, they acknowledge uncertainty while asserting resilience and hope.  The exhibition ultimately positions the journey as a generative force—one that asks us to move deliberately, reflect deeply, and embrace the unknown with cautious optimism.

Annie Marini-Genzon is a contemporary multidisciplinary artist working in painting, sculpture, and installation. Her practice is grounded in narrative and explores memory, identity, migration, and emotional experience through symbolic and process-driven forms. Drawing from personal history and collective human narratives, her work engages with the visible and invisible layers of lived experience. Her paintings and sculptures invite sustained engagement and contemplative viewing.   

This new body of work emerges from a place of renewal. Through sculpted birds, flowering trees and other artworks, I reflect on nature’s eternal cycle — the quiet ending, the unseen transformation, and the courageous return to light. The bird becomes a messenger of hope and movement. It carries memory in its body yet remains poised for flight. The trees, adorned with blossoms, hold the tension between fragility and strength. The woman’s bust is surrounded by butterflies and flowers embedded in her hair. The butterflies evoke transformation, fragility, and rebirth.

These artworks have been inspired by the cycles of nature, identity, and healing. A year after the Eaton Fires that devastated my town, Altadena, resilience and renewal are evident in many ways, signaling hope and renewal.  This work invites the viewer to pause, to breathe, and to imagine renewal not as something dramatic, but as something tender and persistent. Like blossoms opening after winter, like a bird resting before flight, it is about trusting that transformation is already in motion. This exhibition is an offering of positive thought — a meditation on resilience, continuity, and the possibility of beginning again.

Annie’s work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at notable institutions, including the Oceanside Museum of Art, the Ontario Museum of Art, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and the Zimmer Museum. At the Zimmer Children’s Museum, she was commissioned to create a series of sculptures exploring the themes of The Art of Music, The Art of Vision, The Art of Communication, and The Art of Harmony. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Novosibirsk State Art Museum in Russia, the Asociación Cultural Ruiz Aznarin Granada, Spain, and the Premio Concurso Internacional de Artes Plásticas Compositor Antonio Guada in Granada, Spain. Her artworks are included in private and public collections throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

Kiara Aileen Machado is a contemporary artist born and based in Southern California. She depicts and explores the construction of identity, familial lineage, intergenerational trauma and culture in her work. 

My intention with every piece I create is to serve a purpose and bridges contemporary issues. My identity is tied to the diaspora and isthmus by my Guatemalan mother, Salvadoran father, and Honduran great grandmother. I explore this identity in my work through themes of intergenerational trauma and the complex issues concerning Central America and the Caribbean. The inaccessible archives and outright absence of documentation that preceded my work has been a driving factor in my effort to assert Central American experiences via visual narrative. 

Last May I had the opportunity to return to Guatemala with my mom, and grandma. It was an emotional trip as many years had passed since they last visited, and many things had changed. This series of oil and gouache pieces are painted from the perspective of the viewer. These captured memories serve as windows into my personal experiences in Guatemala, while critiquing my own privileges and fluidity between borders. Coming from a culture and community experiencing intergenerational trauma and living during these on-going harassment and racial profiling, I want to create a space where we can heal through art.

Kiara obtained her bachelor’s degree in painting and drawing from California State University Long Beach in 2018. Her artwork has been seen in museums and galleries across the united states and has begun to show internationally including, Florence, Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, San Salvador, Antigua, and Havana. Her work has been acquired by Hood Museum and Ulrich Museum.

Rebecca Nabarrete is a Los Angeles based artist, with a Bachelors from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in painting and video. She frequently shows at galleries in LA and has exhibited in several juried exhibitions. At the age of 10 she started taking art seriously and enrolled in community college life drawing classes. She later attended Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. 

My artwork consists of collage-like imagery painted on found paper, which is then enlarged to inform the narrative. Often, the composition features an unnatural juxtaposition, inviting the viewer to engage in psychological interpretation. Recurring images of little girls blowing bubbles symbolize a character’s self-reflection of their past actions. Little girls use bubble wands in the shape of dinosaurs, referencing generational trauma or unicorns symbolizing denial and a lack of being self-aware. In many compositions there are relationships which are examples of mutualism (bees and flowers) referencing how interpersonal relationships can help each other bloom.  Girls with enmeshed predatory and prey costumes (wolves and fawn), symbolize how people have the tendency to allow dysfunction into their life. In the narratives I create, the characters who have a mutualism & predator-prey relationship, blow bubbles, mimicking life and how we compare and contrast healthy & dysfunctional relationships. Blank VHS tapes are used as backgrounds, referencing how trauma from childhood can be embedded & replayed over and over again. I always try to create profound work, which involves me pulling from a time I was really depressed.  This empowers my new perspective and allows me to create with enthusiasm and joy.

Upon graduating college, Rebecca focused on video editing and cinematography, studying cinema and camera techniques. This has influenced her paintings to be more narrative while affecting the compositions. She continually strives for timeless and universal themes inspired by filmmakers she studied at SAIC such as Ingmar Bergman, Frederico Fellini and Stanley Kubrick.  Rebecca has embraced symbolism and has amassed thousands of images of art from LA’s vibrant art community.