Artist Lecture: Sharmistha Ray

 Please join the Studio Art Department for an artist lecture with Sharmistha Ray. Sharmistha (they/them) is a visual artist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Their artistic practice delves into the complex inheritance of multiple cultures through their immigrant, racialized, and queer identity and historical and contemporary modes of abstraction. Working primarily in painting and drawing, they have also made work in sculpture and installation, curated projects, and written prolifically on art. In addition to their solo work, they co-founded the feminist art collective Hilma’s Ghost which acts as a collaborative model for research, artistic production, pedagogy, and community.

Ray and the collective’s work have been featured in solo and group exhibitions and projects internationally at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY; Galería RGR, Mexico City; Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT; Secrist|Beach, Chicago, IL; Kent State University, Kent, OH; Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens, NY; The Parallax Center, Portland, OR; The Armory Show, New York, NY; Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY; and Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India, any many others. Forthcoming public projects include the MTA in New York City and the new Pittsburgh International Airport in Pittsburgh, PA. 

Ray is the recipient of the Montblanc Young Artist Worldwide Patronage Award, TED Fellowship, and Joan Mitchell MFA Grant, and has been an artist-in-residence at Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY; Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY; Fire Island Artist Residency, Fire Island, NY; and Art Cake, Brooklyn, NY. Reviews of their work have appeared in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Artnet, Hyperallergic, Art India, Take on Art, and TimeOut Mumbai. 

Ray received a dual degree MFA in Painting and MS in Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture from Pratt Institute and BA from Williams College.  

This event is presented with support from the Studio Art Ellen H. Johnson Endowment for Contemporary Art.