A lot of famous artists earned notoriety thanks to dark subject matter. From Francisco Goya’s “Black Paintings” to Hieronymus Bosch’s nightmarish visions to Francis Bacon’s visceral figures, their paintings were meant to afflict and disturb the viewer. While Cayucos land- and seascape painter Mike Golling can certainly appreciate dark work, he has a simple rule for his own paintings.
See him paint
Mike Golling will be demonstrating his painting technique at Casa Ramos Gallery (1034 Los Osos Valley Road, Los Osos) on Small Business Saturday, Nov. 29, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Refreshments will be provided.
“Would I put that on my wall? If I wouldn’t put it on my wall, I don’t want to paint it,” he said over a beer at Morro Bay’s Three Stacks and a Rock Brewery. “I’m always going to paint stuff that I would hang on my own wall.”
For those of us following the local art scene, Golling seemed to come out of nowhere and suddenly be everywhere. For the last few months, every time I opened social media, the roguishly handsome artist was starring back at me holding a new gloriously colorful and boldly rendered local landmark, whether it be the tributaries of Los Osos’ back bay, the San Simeon Pier viewed from sea, or Morro Rock rising into the sky.
Golling, who looks a bit like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, is now 48, and after thinking in high school that the artist’s life was for him, he reluctantly shifted to other ways to make money. He still made time for creativity, but he was more of a pragmatist about it.
“Plan A was to be an artist,” he said wryly, “but you know, I didn’t want to be a starving artist. I focused on functional art, like furniture. I did wooden bowls. I thought, ‘Who’s going to buy paintings?’ I want to sell, so I was focused on functional stuff.”
Even functional art didn’t always pay the bills, and he was married with kids, though now divorced.
“I had tons of jobs, and then I ended up getting into the cemetery business, which turned out to be, you know, perfect. Peaceful. It’s meaningful to me.”
When he’s not making art, Golling is a gravedigger. He currently works at the Cayucos-Morro Bay Cemetery, where he’s worked for 13 years. Before that, he worked at cemeteries in San Luis Obispo and before that Northern California.
It’s physical work to be sure. Yes, they use a backhoe to dig graves, “but we pour the concrete around the headstones,” he said. “It’s a lot of heavy lifting. There’re three of us at this cemetery. We keep pretty busy. But it’s also keeping the grounds up, mowing lawns, trimming around all the headstones.
“There’s something peaceful about [it],” he repeated for emphasis. “When people go into a cemetery, their consciousness changes, you know? It’s sadness, but also there’s peace. And I think in peace, there’s joy in a way, at least for me, and that appeals to me.”
Golling only returned to painting about five years ago, and as he restarted, he sold his work directly to collectors on Facebook Marketplace.
“I sold a bunch there, and super cheap,” he said sheepishly.
Then he got his big break. Last July, Golling responded to a call for artists from the Casa Ramos Gallery in Los Osos. Gallerist and co-owner Elena Ramos-Peffly asked him to come into the gallery with five of his best works.
“I wanted a local landscape painter, and I wanted to meet him in person,” she said. “Artists can be egotistical, but I met him, and he was as sweet and real as his work.”
Golling thinks it helped that his work follows the same basic philosophy of Ramos-Peffly’s famous artist father, John Ramos.
“Elena spotted me, and she hadn’t had any other painters [in her gallery]. Just [her father] John Ramos,” Golling explained. “But she saw my stuff and thought it was a good fit. John and I have the same subject matter, you know? John’s stuff, it seems like it’s aspirational, like the feet in the bathtub. That’s where you want to be. Or the beer at Nepenthe, you know? You want to be there. That’s my philosophy too.”
Golling’s work now commands a few thousand dollars a painting and rising.
In August, Ramos-Peffly signed him to an exclusive three-month trial period. “In two months, he sold 12 paintings,” Ramos-Peffly marveled. “In three months, it was up to 17.”
Even before the trial period ended, she invited him to be part of the gallery. By the time you read this, his most recent painting of Morro Rock might already be sold.
“There’re people that want it, but it’s not dry yet,” he laughed.
Golling works in oils and uses a “wet on wet” technique that requires thick application of paint in some areas. He’s also a real “morning person,” often getting up at 2:30 a.m. to start painting.
“I’ve got this daylight lamp,” he explained. “I turn that thing on, and I’ll start by staring at the painting, drinking my morning coffee, just looking at it.”
He’s planning his next steps, and he might spend 30 minutes to an hour mixing paint to get the colors just right before he puts brush to canvas. He uses two glass palettes on tables on either side of his easel, and he works from cellphone photos he’s taken, holding the phone in one hand and the brush in the other.
Looking back at his past work, which has all been beautiful, he’s advanced in technique by leaps and bounds. His last few paintings are becoming more colorful, dramatic, deftly rendered, and downright stunning.
“I feel like I’m getting it,” he said modestly.
He also credits hypnotherapy with helping him get into the painting zone.
“About five years ago, I got into hypnotherapy,” he recalled. “I went in to quit smoking, and I was just blown away by the method. With hypnosis, it’s like the technique—it’s all visual. It works for me. You go into a trance. It’s kind of an ecstatic thing.”
His next painting will be of Spooner’s Cove in Montaña De Oro. He’s also aiming for 100 paintings of Morro Rock. He’s done 19 so far, and they’re all very different.
Mike Golling is absolutely an artist to watch. ∆
Contact Arts Editor Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 7, 2025.