I paint to bridge the ordinary and the enchanting, capturing the quiet magic that lives in everyday corners of the city. Through layered urban landscapes, I explore memory, movement, and belonging—using color, light, and intricate details to reveal both nostalgia and possibility. My work invites viewers to pause, notice, and reimagine their relationship with the places they move through every day.
Shrey Purohit
Artist + Curator
Born in Mumbai, based in San Francisco
Shrey Purohit (b. 1997, Mumbai, India) is a San Francisco–based painter and curator whose practice transforms city streets into vibrant visual narratives. Rooted in the plein-air tradition but infused with cinematic framing and surreal undertones, his paintings balance realism with dreamlike resonance. His subjects range from late-night diners and transit glow to neighborhood landmarks and shifting skylines, reflecting both personal memory and collective urban life. Since moving to San Francisco in 2018, Shrey’s practice has expanded into community building and exhibition making.
Shrey is a studio artist at Root Division and his work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in San Francisco and New York, including a 2024 presentation in NYC's Chinatown, numerous community-based shows, Moth Belly Gallery, Root Divison. Minnesota Street Projects, City Hall of SF and art fairs throughout the Bay Area. His public art projects are visible across Ocean Ave in SF and include a residency with Meta's Artist-In-Residence program. Shrey has been recognized with the Plein Air Salon Award twice and is a recipient of the Jerry Goldstein Fellowship.
He is the Exhibitions & Partnerships Lead at ArtSpan, where he leads the Art-In-Neighborhoods program, and the founder of Ingleside Gallery, the first art space in San Francisco’s Ingleside neighborhood, which now lives beyond as exhibitions at Ballast Coffee & People's Barbershop, continuing to champion overlooked and emerging voices in the Bay Area arts ecosystem. Alongside Shrey has worked with Bay Area Creative Foundation and Svane Family Foundation.
As a curator, Shrey's projects focus on creating platforms for neighbors and artists to connect, and have appeared at major San Francisco venues including City Hall, the Ferry Building, Levi’s Plaza, Treasure Island, and various community-centered spaces across the city.
Artist Statement
My work is a love letter to the rhythms of city life, rooted in my experience growing up in Mumbai and now calling San Francisco home. I find magic in the everyday—from the fog and the misty morning bus ride to the storefront signs that carry the pulse of a neighborhood.
My paintings are built on a foundation of oil and acrylic, integrated with recreations of historic ephemera—photographs, signs, flyers, and receipts—allowing texture, text, and history to coexist on the surface. My process is influenced by the immediacy of plein-air painting and the wide-angle narrative of cinema, always rooted in observation, consent, and care.
While my early work explored transit and cityscapes, my focus has shifted to honoring the city’s working class. My new body of work, “Unsung SF: Portraits of the Working City,” features large-scale narrative portraits of San Francisco’s blue-collar workers—postal carriers, baristas, and cleaners. These pieces are informed by paid interviews and objects gathered from their routines, incorporating the environments that shape their lives.
Ultimately, my work celebrates urban life in all its complexity. I aim to reflect dignity upon those who sustain the city and to reveal the quiet, enduring beauty of everyday labor. I believe art belongs everywhere—not just in galleries, but in the public spaces where stories connect and shine.