New York, NY - My Pet Ram is pleased to present Whisper In The Roots, a group exhibition co-curated by Julia Blume, and featuring work by CARO, Carlo D’Anselmi, Raul De Lara, Meris Drew, Evan Gilbert, Andrew Hildenbrand, Steve Keister, Andrea McGinty, Nat Meade, Lina Puerta, Sarah Schlesinger, Alexandria Tarver, and Andre Yvon.

A garden is a message from the insides of the Earth. Deep below the roses and the summer squash, the soil is speaking. Whispers are ferried by fungus from root to root, and beneath our footsteps vast networks of story grow. We catch glimpses of this story through the shoots and saplings sent from underground, and we call these glimpses “leaf”, “flower”, “tree”.

The stories underground are long stories, and slow ones, taking place over timescales longer than a human life, and we can often barely see where they lead. And yet we believe in them. When we plant a garden, as when we make art, we bet on the future – on the hope that our seeds will sprout and our plants will flower and our garden will thrive despite the odds. On the hope that what we create will make a more vibrant world. And year after year, we point ourselves towards distant utopias and we tend to our gardens. Then we crouch down to listen. The story keeps going.

In the metaphorical soil of Whisper in the Roots, the artists are bound by many filaments. They share certain attitudes towards color, and a certain playfulness towards -- and mastery of -- surface. These pieces cleverly and thoughtfully pay attention to light and borders and art history, and each mirrors the life of a garden in its own way. CARO and Lina Puerta’s meticulously crafted pieces engage with the slow work of making new worlds possible, and Evan Gilbert’s raucously fecund painting revels in the entanglement with place. Sarah Schlesinger, Alexandria Tarver, and Andre Yvon engage with the expansiveness of night, when life remains constant and there is the allure of being unwatched. Steve Keister finds the joy and humor that comes with welcoming the animals of the garden, while Carlo D’Anselmi, Raul De Lara, and Nat Meade tell stories of human individuals and archetypes engaging with and cohabiting with the land. Andrea McGinty and Andrew Hildenbrand offer visions of human habitation and labor within the garden, while Meris Drew’s painting brings to mind memories of the light in gardens past.

If each of these pieces is a flower, their blossoms are very different, but their roots are all living and communicating within the same rich soil.

Whisper In The Roots will be on view beginning Friday, June 7 through July 21, 2024. The gallery is located at 48 Hester Street in the Lower East Side. Gallery hours are Thursday-Sunday from 12-6pm and by appointment. Summer hours are subject to change. For more information about this exhibition, please email info@mypetram.com.

Text By Julia Blume