People

Sharmistha Ray (they/them) is a visual artist and Estella Loomis McCandless Associate Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. Their interdisciplinary practice delves into the complex inheritance of multiple cultures through their queer immigrant identity and modes of historical and contemporary abstraction. Working across painting, drawing, animation, textiles, performance, and public art, they have also curated exhibitions and written prolifically for significant publications and journals on critical and theoretical frameworks in contemporary art practice. In addition to their solo work, they co-founded the spiritualist 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 Guggenheim, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ; The Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA;  The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY; Nature Morte, New Delhi, India; Galería RGR, Mexico City; Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT; Secrist|Beach, Chicago, IL; The Shepherd, Detroit, MI; Pen + Brush, New York, NY; The Parallax Center, Portland, OR; Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh, PA; The Armory Show, New York, NY; and others.

Public-facing art projects and commissions include Grand Central Station, New York, NY; Pittsburgh International Airport, Pittsburgh, PA; Arts Landing, Pittsburgh, PA; University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA; and Platform, Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX.

Ray is the recipient of a Joan Mitchell MFA Grant, Montblanc Young Artist Worldwide Patronage Award, and TED Fellowship, and has been an artist-in-residence at Surf Point, York, ME; Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY; Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY; Fire Island Artist Residency, Fire Island, NY; and Art Cake, Brooklyn, NY. They have also been a visiting artist or part-time faculty at educational institutions that include: Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; School of Visual Arts, New York, NY; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Parsons School of Design, New York, NY; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY; New York University, New York, NY; Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH; and others. Reviews of Ray and the collective’s work have appeared in publications that include The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Artnet, and Hyperallergic. Ray currently serves with Hilma’s Ghost on the Editorial Board of Feminist Art Practices and Research, an academic journal by Taylor & Francis. They 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.

_{Portrait by Zachary Riggleman}

_{Image: Sharmistha Ray, Geometry of Play, painted ground murals, 2026. Commissioned for Arts Landing, an outdoor civic space in the Cultural District envisioned and operated by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Photo by Chris Uhren.}