Artist Shrey Purohit
Shrey Purohit is the kind of person everyone should know. Not know about (although obviously that’s what this podcast aims to do), but know personally.
In this podcast, Episode 2 of Season 8 of Storied: San Francisco, meet and get to know Shrey. A few of his art pieces are up at Mini Bar through Oct. 19 in our Every Kinda People show. And at the risk of being hyperbolic, through the experience of putting that show together, I am very happy that I’ve come to know Shrey.
We begin with Shrey’s birth, which happened in Mumbai, India, in 1997. Both his parents are doctors. Shrey’s mom comes from a family of doctors going back four generations. Her dad (Shrey’s grandfather) was driven out of what is now Pakistan and went to Mumbai with his possessions in hand to start a new life at just 15 years old. Shrey speaks of how fond he was of that grandfather, even describing some of his hobbies and wardrobe choices (bow ties because regular ties would get in the way of his medical duties).
Shrey’s family was rooted in the Sindhi culture in India. It’s a community steeped in entrepreneurship, and his grandfather was one of the first in his area to be a male gynecologist. His wife was an anesthesiologist and worked with her husband.
Shrey jumps ahead to note that his parents, too, worked together in the medical field. His dad specializes in diabetes treatment. The two met when Shrey’s dad was treating his mom’s aunt. It was what Shrey calls a “semi-arranged marriage,” but to my understanding, more like a “hey, here’s someone who might be good for you” type of situation. He says his parents’ coming together had some love to it, which is probably more than most arranged marriages.
They built a medical practice that became very successful, he says. So successful, in fact, that it allowed both of their children—Shrey and his younger sister—to live abroad. Because his sister was born when he was three or so, he got to help name her. “It was my first creative project,” Shrey says.
Shrey lived in Mumbai until he finished school. His formative memories take place in his neighborhood of Colaba in South Mumbai, near the water and the Gateway of India. He says it has “big-town energy with a small-town vibe.” Everyone knows everyone else, and Shrey has brought that same spirit with him halfway around the world.
We go on a sidebar about how San Francisco can have that big city/small town feel.
Shrey got started doing graphic design while still living in India. He even went to school for it over there. He did well in it, so well that he hired a few employees. But he soon found that people don’t take kindly to being bossed around by a 17-year-old.
He pivoted from design to art, something he’d always wanted to do. A formative experience for Shrey was going to an event at Kulture Shop in Mumbai, where he met Jas Charanjiva. Jas, who’s originally from Napa, helped open Kulture Shop to support Indian artists. He was 15 and had found a mentor in Jas.
Shrey has an uncle in Millbrae whom he had visited with family a few years before. His uncle took them to several spots around town, including to AT&T Park for a Giants game. His Indian school credits transferred, and so, when Shrey was 19, he moved to The Bay to attend California College of the Arts and study comics, illustration, and painting.
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.
Tomorrow, look for a bonus episode with the 2025 San Francisco Low Rider Parade Grand Marshal, David Gonzales.
This episode is brought to you by Standard Deviant Brewing. We recorded this podcast at Root Division in South of Market in August 2025.
Photography by Nate Oliveira
