Bio

Sharmistha Ray is an artist, writer, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. She was formerly Managing Director at Bodhi Art (Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, Berlin, and Singapore), the inaugural Sales Director – Asia at Hauser & Wirth, and VIP Representative – India at Art Basel. Sharmistha’s work has been exhibited in galleries and art fairs in New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai and New Delhi. Solo exhibitions include “we are all islands” (Nine Fish, Mumbai & Mill Hall, Kochi, India), “Reflections & Transformations” (Aicon, New York), and “hidden geographies” (Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India).

She is the recipient of notable awards including a TED Fellowship (2009), Montblanc Young Artist Worldwide Patronage Award (2012), Joan Mitchell MFA Grant (2004), and was nominated for the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship for Visual Art (2014). Her writings have been published in various online and print magazines including Art Asia Pacific, Hyperallergic, Artcritical, Art India and the India editions of Vogue and Elle. Sharmistha has spoken on several art-based panels, including Review Panel at the Brooklyn Public Library, NY; at the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai; and CSMVS (Prince of Wales Museum), Mumbai, among others.

Sharmistha gave a TED Talk in Vancouver, Canada in 2013, and spoke at SXSW on a panel about women and entrepreneurship in Austin, Texas, in 2019. She is frequently invited to artists’ residencies and art colleges as a visiting artist and critic. Some of these have included the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY; Flux Factory, Queens, NY; The Wassaic Project, NY; Piramal Art Residency, Mumbai; and What About Art?, Mumbai. She received a BA (Art) from Williams College and a dual degree MS (History of Art & Design) and MFA (Painting) from Pratt Institute, with honors.

She is currently Part-Time Faculty at Parsons School of Design in the Fine Arts Department, and also works in development at the CUE Art Foundation, a city-based non-profit that supports emerging and under-represented artists, writers, and curators, and runs educational programming for New York City students.