'Encounter with an Angel' (2025). Aaron Johnson. Acrylic on canvas. 40" x 30" x 1.5". Courtesy of the artist and La BEAST Gallery. All Rights Reserved.
‘Under The Lazy Sun’ Group Show @ La BEAST Gallery
With an exhibition of a plurality of artists representing a summertime mood at La BEAST Gallery, two capture the success of that aire of levity; an attitude absent the lachrymose.
‘Encounter with an Angel’ (2025). Aaron Johnson. Acrylic on canvas. 40″ x 30″ x 1.5″. Courtesy of the artist and La BEAST Gallery. All Rights Reserved.
Aaron Johnson’s, in the words of the gallery owner, “psychedelic intimacy”, portrays an originality in the viscosity of colors which he shapes into abstract beauty. Encounter with an Angel, 2025 is one such example. At 40” x30” x 11.5” its constancy in the depiction of swirling illuminates, though not with a glamorously sparkling of bright. It is a subdued yet impressionable subteley of the mixture, nay, blending, which circulates the composition unto a happy balance of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Does this assembly seek a divine contact? Does it presuppose a higher life, beyond mortality, is succulently light and playful with its harmonious medley and cosmic ideas? Perhaps a return to an original source, unvarnished in informing with delightful content, reminds the subject of a loftier place to rest one’s mind’s eye.
‘Cactus Blossom Girl’ (2024). Aaron Johnson. Acrylic on canvas. 16″ x 12″. Courtesy of the artist and La BEAST Gallery. All Rights Reserved.
Similarly, his Cactus Blossom Girl, 2024 emphasizes an abstraction with rotary forms – with possibly a playful hair-curler idea in its 16” x 12” composition. I’m appreciative of the anthropomorphic abstraction; with certifiable lips yet a difficult move onto painting eyes without a horrid glare staring back. That odious feat unto balancing the harmony – yet without an exertion – of yellow; a modicum of cheekiness without crassness; and more pseudo-cosmic-space-life-fauna forming what appears to be hair – cactus blossoms at that – is commendable of accolade. Indeed, the pink lips which are in a hue which is sweet yet not sugary is consistent with such an artist who informs the world of delicacy with his artful tones.
‘Tomales Bay Swim with Heavy Cloudscape’ (2025). Rob Moss Wilson. Acrylic on canvas with redwood frame. 13″ x 13″ x 1.5″. Courtesy of the artist and LA BEAST Gallery. All Rights Reserved.
Mr. Rob Moss Wilson moves away from the psychedelic and therefore completely absent the bizarre – not that there is anything wrong with that. I would claim his artworks are delightfully innocuous. Works which are absolutely – totally and completely – void of stirring the senses with anything but gladness. And how simple it is, to return to natural simplicity. What is wrong with the styling of natural beauty, and the water – so quintessentially summertime – with a fun depiction of humans in harmony? That the mind can rest itself with the contentment of a pacific enjoinment is enrichment.
‘Naked Surf Sesh Paddle Out. (2025). Rob Moss Wilson. Acrylic on canvas with redwood frame. 13″ x 17″ x 1.5″. Courtesy of the artist and La BEAST Gallery. All Rights Reserved.
Naked Surf Sesh Paddle Out, 2025, for instance, is cherubically enjoyable in what would otherwise be blasé to a surftown. Then again, how many surf towns are nudist colonies? This consistency with an innocence in Nature, as an affirmation of how humans ought to be, which is carefree, is worthy of experience. To then pattern daily. With each other.
For more information, please contact the gallery:
info@labeastgallery.com | +1 213 705 4696
la BEAST gallery 831 Cypress Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90065