Artist Shrey Purohit, Part 2 (S8E2)

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Although it made all kinds of sense for Shrey to move halfway around the world to go to art school, he says it was "an uphill battle” convincing his parents of the plan. Still, his mom was and is a champion of her son and his art.

It was 2018 and Shrey was 20. We talk about his experience of arriving in San Francisco, a city that was “such a beacon of hope” for him. He dedicated himself to his studies at CCA. He also paid serious attention to the news, and even attempted political art. When that didn’t pan out financially, a professor at CCA strongly encouraged Shrey to stay with painting, that it was his lane. This was just before the pandemic. When he got his first stimulus check, Shrey bought an easel and began going out and painting en plein air. He did this so much and promoted his art so well that, by the time he graduated, he had started getting commissions. He was able to become a full-time artist—a dream of his.

Shrey is such an artist, through and through, that he even has an art job. Like, a job-job. Four days a week, Shrey works for ArtSpan—a local arts nonprofit possibly best-known for Open Studios. Shrey shares the history of ArtSpan and OpenStudios.

What began in 1975 in South of Market as a way for artists shunned by galleries to show their art and sell it today sees around 600 artists opening their studio doors all over The City. Shrey manages the Arts and Neighborhoods program for ArtSpan. That group helps organize exhibitions during Open Studios at non-studio locations. Mission Bowling Club is one such location. In fact, Shrey got his first art show after graduation through help from ArtSpan. It’s a beautiful full-circle story.

That first show led to other shows. And Shrey credits his entrepreneurial brain for recognizing an opportunity in all of this—if a cafe has suitable walls, you can talk with the owner about hanging art by local artists, promote an opening, and make things happen. And so that’s what he did.

Partly because putting on one art show, not to mention doing multiple shows at the same, is what the kids refer to as a lot, Shrey focussed his efforts at one location. Ballast Coffee on West Portal became the home of Ingleside Gallery. The first art show at his gallery brought in more than $10,000 in sales.

I have to insert some editorial here, so thanks for indulging me. Shrey and I recorded this podcast before our Every Kinda People show. I won’t pretend that my own art curation is anywhere close to the level that he (and my friend Anita of KnownSF and countless others around SF, The Bay, and the world) operates on. But Shrey does speak to the nature of both the volume and the intensity of the work that goes into putting on an art show. In my own way, I relate.

Back to my and Shrey’s conversation, I ask him to talk about how our lives intersected. It was earlier this year after I recorded with Ellen Lo of Ask Me SF. I needed to drop off a Storied: SF hoodie for Ellen, so she asked me to meet her one Saturday morning on Ocean Avenue. She and some friends and community members would be out there painting a mural over a dilapidated street wall in front of a PG&E substation. Sign me up! After politely declining to add my own (attempted) artistic touch to their creation that day, Ellen introduced me to a friend of hers. Right away, I got a sense of that exuberance Shrey embodies, a trait I am now very familiar with.

We end the episode with thoughts about the Every Kinda People show, up at Mini Bar through October 19. Follow Shrey on Instagram @shreypurohit and @inglesidegallery.