Are you happy? A lot might be bringing you down, but at Casa Ramos Art Gallery in Los Osos, proprietor Elena Ramos-Peffly wants to turn your frown upside down with Happy, an art show and an opening party on May 2.
You’re invited!
Casa Ramos Art Gallery (1034 Los Osos Valley Road, Los Osos) hosts a new group exhibition titled Happy, an art show, opening Saturday, May 2, from 2 to 6 p.m.
“The exhibition brings together a group of Central Coast artists with new work selected around a shared intention: to create pieces that offer a sense of happiness, color, and optimism,” the gallery announced. “While each artist approaches the theme in their own way, the work is unified by a focus on what feels like a mental escape.”
Contact the gallery via email at hello@losososart.com or by calling (805) 439-0306.
“Happy came to be when I was looking for ways to reinvigorate the spirit of our people,” Ramos-Peffly said. “There’s a lot of protest art, art that shows the scary, sad, graphic realities of what’s happening around the world, everything that’s so heavy right now. It’s needed. It’s like Picasso’s Guernica or Goya’s paintings during the Spanish Civil War, but at the same time, our hearts are craving something to smile about. It’s like we’re craving for the sun to come out. So, for me, this is the protest. I’m not letting what’s happening in the world dim my light, and I wanted to extend that to other people when they come to our show.”
In part, the idea of a show promoting happiness was inspired by the very people who wander into her gallery. They all seem to leave with smiles on their faces.
“I have people come into the gallery, and they’re so forlorn, and their faces are so withdrawn, maybe they just read something in the news, and they just look so bummed out, but when they’re in there, they tell me, ‘Wow, I can actually take a deep breath, and I feel happy. This art makes me feel happy.’ That’s what I wanted to harness, you know?”
Casa Ramos takes its name from Ramos-Peffly’s famous artist father, John Ramos, known for his “wish you were here” realist art that places the viewer in idyllic settings. The gallery mounted a retrospective of his work last November, and he just turned 85 on April 20, but he’s still painting, and his work is happiness personified.
“There’s humor in my work and positivity,” he explained from his Los Osos studio. “I don’t paint angst. I don’t paint the negative side of life. I only paint the positive. It makes you feel alive. It makes you smile.”
He’s currently working on a painting of Big Sur, but over his long career, he’s made dozens of paintings that have been made into fine art giclee prints, which Ramos-Peffly frames in her gallery.
In addition to work by her father, she’s also showing work by oil painter Mike Golling, ceramicist Phillip Lopez, glass artist George Jercich, recycled and found object artist Jonny Miller, jewelry artist Adrianne Jenkins, sculptor Dan Rider, and her own fauvist-inspired paintings of interiors.
“I told [the artists] that, for the first time, I’m not going to be curating this show,” Ramos-Peffly explained. “In the past, when we’ve done Earth Day shows, I’d say, ‘OK, we’re going to have a nature theme.’ But this time around, I just told them, ‘You’re going to put in the gallery whatever’s been inspiring you for the last six months. When you’ve wanted to take all your creative instincts and just put them away and not even think about creating art, what’s brought you out of that? That’s what I want you to hang on the walls.’ There’re no expectations from me. I want them to freely create. It was just whatever you’re doing that’s making you happy right now.”
That utter freedom, that complete lack of expectations, influenced the artists. Jonny Miller, a professional skateboarder who often makes beach culture assemblage or decorated skate decks, made a self-portrait.
“Our ceramicist [George Jercich] brought in three vessels that he created,” Ramos-Peffley said. “I asked him, ‘So, what did you think? Do you feel like this pulled you out of your comfort zone?’ And he said, ‘It’s all I can think about for the last three months.’ He’s like, ‘You have no idea how exciting this was for me to just do something that I’ve always wanted to do that’s completely abstract and different than I’ve ever done before, and I am so excited about it.’ That was fantastic.”
Her dad isn’t as prolific as he once was, and his formerly hyperrealist work has changed a bit as he’s gotten older.
“He doesn’t see as well, and his dexterity is not the same,” Ramos-Peffly explained. “He’s not processing the way a 40-year-old would, at the height of his career. But I told him about this show, and I said, ‘This is the deal. If you’—and I had to be a little bit of a patrona here—I said, ‘If you want to have a painting in this show, you have to paint authentically for who you are at this point.’”
She got him some bigger brushes, a big canvas, and told him, “‘It doesn’t have to be perfect. I just want you to have fun. So sit at your easel and paint as John Ramos at 85 years old.’ He’s using colors and shapes and fluidity that I’ve never seen him use before. And quite honestly, I wish that he would have done this a long time ago. He’s been the master of detail and photorealism, but this is who he is today. And I love it. It’s so great to see how his mind is just still thriving with art, and if he didn’t have art, I don’t know what he’d be doing. I honestly don’t.”
‘I have people come into the gallery, and they’re so forlorn … and they just look so bummed out, but when they’re in there, they tell me, “Wow, I can actually take a deep breath, and I feel happy.”’
—Elena Ramos-Peffly, Casa Ramos Art Gallery proprietor
Painting is transporting, and Ramos creates beautiful images you want to get lost in.
“When I’m sitting here painting, I’m in la-la land,” he laughed. “If I think about how crazy the world is, the Middle East, the world at war, and it’s awful, just awful, what I do is I get back to work on my paintings. I get my brush, and I start mixing colors, and that takes me to a different place. Everything else just kind of changes, and I just feel good. It’s been like that all my life.”
“Artists, all throughout history, have had to create during horrible times,” Ramos-Peffly added. “And I feel like it’s our responsibility now to carry on that fight and keep going to show how beautiful the world can be. It all comes from within each and every one of these creative people that we have at the gallery. As long as I have a place to show art, and a place for my artists to be able to display their art, we’re winning, and that’s all that I care about at this point. So, yeah, Happy, an art show.” ∆
Contact Arts Editor Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in April 30 – May 7, 2026.