My Pet Ram is pleased to announce Golden Hour, an exhibition of new work by Stephanie Guerrero, Cary Hulbert, and Margaret Thompson. The exhibition Golden Hour showcases mysterious landscape paintings with seemingly natural forms cast in uncanny yet captivating light. When the sun is close to the horizon on a sunny day, and its light appears warmer and softer, barely lasting an hour, it occupies a state of in-between. The landscapes included in Golden Hour reference specific, mythological, and sacred spaces. Through layering, each artist plays with dreamlike representation allowing each viewer a unique way to enter the work.

Guerrero's works investigates the relationship between nature, technology and the human experience. Her paintings depict the various landscapes of the Americas in combination with mythologies, ancestral musing, topography, and the human form. The diffusion paper on which her works are created, are sourced from electronics that contain LCD screens. This pairing of material and subject matter is a reminder of both the distancing and merging that technology brings to our experience of the natural world.

Hulbert's lucid color schemes and hazy structures depict a time and space detached from our present reality yet filled with details that continuously reach back into a primordial natural world. These works stem from a developed environment that the artist has been depicting for years. Yet, these new adaptations on panel have allowed her to access a deeper physicality in her textures and a further expansion into the space of these illustrious habitats. The world of Cary Hulbert may feel unfamiliar; however, upon deeper investigation, her organic shapes merely mimic those recognizable to us.

Thompson filters reality through her own mythology, using oils, wax, raw pigments, and various surfaces to paint fantastical worlds where the spirit reigns. Inspired by elements of the symbolist movement and magical realism, she channels dreams, visions, and the associative powers of the imagination into her practice. In a way, each painting is a tribute to the life force of a moment - real or imagined - she never wants to forget. The human relationship to nature is palpable in everything she creates. Having lived in and constantly in awe of the coastlines of Northern California and the high desert of New Mexico, Thompson makes art that asks us to appreciate the magic of creation.

Golden Hour will be on view Friday, December 16, 2022 through Sunday, January 15, 2022. A reception will be held on Friday, December 16 from 6-9pm. The Santa Barbara gallery is located at 16 Helena Avenue, just off of Cabrillo Boulevard in the Funk Zone. Gallery hours are Friday-Sunday from 12-7pm and by appointment. For inquiries and more information about this exhibition, please email info@mypetram.com.