Summer Meditations: Featuring Zo Frampton / Barbara Kolo / Moti Tavassoli

LAUNCH LA is proud to present Summer Meditations, featuring new works by Los Angeles–based artists Zo Frampton, Barbara Kolo, and Moti Tavassoli. Each artist's practice reflects a sustained commitment to thoughtful, deliberate art-making, where sustained labor and careful attention to process become visible in every mark. Through these new paintings and drawings, the artists transform intentional gestures into evocative imagery that invites contemplation, optimism, and emotional connection. Together, these new series celebrate the meditative nature of creative practice and the capacity of art to inspire and hearten its viewers.

Zo Frampton’s most recent body of work is a series of abstract botanical still life drawings inspired by embroidery and other classic textile techniques. Zo grew up surrounded by strong creative women who taught her to sew, knit and stitch. The repetitive nature of these traditional crafts informed her sense of belonging and inspired her to create her own language of mark making.

I don’t plan my compositions in advance. Each drawing is created line by line and layer by layer. This iterative process is incredibly time intensive, even obsessive. The drawings are an accumulation, creating the illusion of three dimensions through depth and repetition while the overall simplicity of shape reflects a complexity that I see all around me in the forest, ocean and sky. These drawings land somewhere between science fact and science fiction. They are inspired by pollen spores and the cellular structure of plants and also massive underwater coral reefs, home to thousands of types of life. I am drawing the micro and the macro and creating bouquets of shapes. After years of working exclusively in black and white I find color starting to make its way into my work. The deep jewel tones of the sea and the sky serve as a background for some of my recent drawings, bringing them out of the night time shadows and into the deep blues of early dawn. ~ Z.F.

Zo Frampton is a Los Angeles based artist. She received her MFA from the California College of the Arts and has shown her work in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. Her current body of work consists of intricate monochromatic drawings in ink and acrylic on board. She works out of a home studio in Topanga Canyon where she can feel the breeze and hear the tree branches rustling.

There is a quiet stillness in Barbara Kolo’s work that emerges naturally through her artistic practice. Her inspiration is drawn from the forms, patterns, and rhythms of the natural world. Influenced by Impressionist, Aboriginal, and Asian art traditions, she has developed a distinctive visual language of dots, circles, and lines that encourages reflection, mindfulness, and introspection.

This body of work was developed in response to the anxieties of our time—the pandemic, California’s devastating wildfires, and the increasing divisions within our society. My intention was to transform uncertainty into something positive and restorative. Research suggests that viewing fractal patterns can help reduce stress levels, which gives new purpose to a quality that has always come naturally to my practice. Through these paintings, I hope to offer viewers an escape and a visual experience that fosters calm, connection, and well-being amid the complexities of contemporary life.

Working with acrylic paint on canvas and panel, I embrace the medium’s quick-drying properties to support a spontaneous and immersive process. Each painting evolves through the application of hundreds of hand-painted dots, allowing patterns, symmetry, and subtle shifts in color to emerge organically over time. I intentionally embrace the slight irregularities that occur, revealing the human hand within the work. This repetitive act of mark-making becomes a meditative practice that expresses my connection to nature and invites viewers into a space of quiet contemplation and balance. ~ B.K.

Barbara Kolo earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at KP Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Quotidian, Los Angeles, CA; Slate Contemporary, Oakland, CA; Van Der Plas Gallery, New York, NY; FP Contemporary, Culver City, CA; Gallerie Reitz, Cologne, Germany; and Art 1307, Naples, Italy; among others.  Notable curators associated with the artist in several of the listed exhibitions are Andi Campognone, Jill Moniz and Cynthia Penna.  Kolo’s work has been featured at major art fairs including CONTEXT Art Miami, Miami, FL; Art Southampton, Bridgehampton, NY; the Houston Fine Art Fair, Houston, TX; and ART.FAIR in Cologne, Germany. In 2024, Kolo exhibited Elusion, a solo show at bG Gallery, Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, CA, curated by Sung Hee Son. Barbara’s paintings are held in numerous private and corporate collections including Apollo Wealth Management, New York, NY; FINRA, Washington DC; the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN and Jacksonville, FL; the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, SG and the Rosewood Hotel, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Barbara Kolo currently lives and works in Santa Monica, CA

Moti Tavassoli’s deep connection to nature stems from her dual identity as a Persian American immigrant.  While often feeling liminal between cultures, the natural world—from her grandfather's orchard in Tehran to the hills of San Luis Obispo—has consistently offered a profound sense of belonging and rootedness. Through these compositions, Moti explores her intrinsic ties to the botanical realm, inviting viewers to reflect on their own identity and relationship with nature.

The fusion of detailed observation and abstraction positions my work within contemporary ecological art dialogues. My art challenges conventional Western perceptions of ecological dominance, inviting viewers to actively redefine their interconnection with the natural world. My process integrates intuitive painting with precise drawing techniques within formal compositions, often echoing the immersive perspective of Japanese screen paintings. This compositional approach, designed to immediately draw the viewer into the scene rather than observing from a distance, is central to my objective of dissolving the perceived separation between human and natural worlds. I begin by developing expansive, vibrant, organic color fields, meticulously layering acrylic paint, inspired by the surprising chromatic shifts observed in local floral species and abstracted botanical and mycological forms. This serves as foundations for intricate, controlled line drawings and textural renderings. This dual approach aims to visually reconcile the perceived chaos of natural forms with their underlying complex systemic order. This current body of work, developed during my residency at Soaring Gardens, represents a synthesis of my ongoing research into plant systems and how their relationships can teach and inspire a closer connection and care for the natural world. ~ M.T.

Moti Tavassoli (b. 1987) is a Persian-American artist and designer based in Los Angeles. An immigrant who feels without roots and suspended between two places and identities, her abstract acrylic paintings and ceramic sculptures use color fields and delicate lines and textures to explore her relationship to nature as her ‘chosen home’. Moti was a participant in Ellsworth Artist Residency and Soaring Gardens Artists Retreat, has exhibited her work nationally, and her work is held in private collections. She holds a bachelor of Architecture from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo and teaches design at UCLA’s TeenArch program.