Los Angeles artist Kaoru Mansour creates paintings out of botanical collage elements on wooden panels and canvas. Delicately colored organic forms are covered with twenty to thirty different layers of encaustic, which gives her work a rich and highly textured appearance. Mansour’s paintings explore the relationship between man and nature, through traditional sonaemono, Japanese offerings of sweets, vegetables, or fruits to shrines and temples for their ancestors. Sonaemono are never meant for human consumption. However, when small birds nibble at the treats, it is a sign of being at one with nature. The birds represent nature, but they also have human-like qualities. A native of Japan, Kaoru Mansour grew up in a small mountainous village. She has vivid, early childhood memories of playing with, studying and even eating the tremendous varieties of seasonal plants in the lush forests of Japan. As she began her formal training as an artist at Otis Parsons Art Institute in Los Angeles, the impact of her previous natural surroundings emerged. In her latest exhibition, Sonaemono/Offerings, Kaoru Mansour offers the viewer small treats to nibble on and contemplate, and celebrate her love of nature.