Under the Lazy Sun: Mónica Figueroa, Michael Haight, Aaron Johnson, Nathaniel Kyung Smith, and Rob Moss Wilson

Press Release

la BEAST gallery is pleased to present ‘Under the Lazy Sun’, a group show featuring works by Mónica Figueroa, Michael Haight, Aaron Johnson, Nathaniel Kyung Smith, and Rob Moss Wilson. Rather than following a single thread, this grouping of works share a particular warmth; a common temperature. There’s a gentle ease laid bare, like light slipping through a curtain or skin resting against warm grass. Something akin to the slow malaise felt on a languid summer-day afternoon.

‘Under the Lazy Sun’ opens with a reception on Saturday, June 28, from 6-9 PM at la BEAST gallery in Cypress Park. The exhibition will remain on view through August 2nd.

About the Exhibition 

There’s something about walking into an air conditioned gallery on the hottest of days. The acrid smell of dry air and paint, the extreme shift in environment, or maybe it’s just the reprieve from the heat. However you spin it, time behaves differently; longer, slower, a little warped. It’s a mood.

In essence, this show is a crystallization of that feeling. More atmospheric than literal, hazy and fleeting like a half-remembered dream. Figures bend and blur. Colors drift, gather, and glow. The images slip between tenderness and oddity, always on the verge of becoming recognizable before abruptly pivoting elsewhere.

Nothing here feels isolated. There’s a sense of contact throughout, not just physical but emotional, like the works are holding one another in a gentle, affectionate loop. It’s not about turmoil. It’s about touch, closeness, and the lingering aura of intimacy. The gesture is small, but unmistakable: a brief but meaningful moment of bliss. The Sun only shines but once a day.