Hilma's Ghost

Photo by Dulce Pinzón

Hilma's Ghost is a feminist artist collective co-founded by artists and educators Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray that fuses contemporary art with modern spirituality through forms of divination and ritual. Named after the Swedish artist and mystic, Hilma af Klint, the collective's work is a critique of gendered power structures, providing a critical and revolutionary platform for rethinking gender in the arts while recovering feminist histories as its ballast for critique. The collective acts as a collaborative model for feminist research, artistic production, experimental pedagogies, and community activations. Their work ranges from the traditional to the esoteric, including paintings and drawings, surrealist games, a tarot deck, ritual object-based installations, pedagogical workshops, curated exhibitions, community projects, and artist books.

Hilma’s Ghost began at the height of the pandemic in 2020. Since then, Tegeder and Ray have completed more than 20 collaborative projects and participated in more than 80 public programs both nationally and internationally. In 2022, the duo began an itinerant art school with generative workshops fusing art and magic that have been attended by over 6K people. Their limited edition tarot deck, Abstract Futures Tarot, has a popular following amongst artists and occult practitioners and is now in its third edition.

Hilma’s Ghost has been featured in solo and group exhibitions and projects internationally at Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), São Paulo, Brazil; The Shepherd, Detroit, MI; Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Galería RGR, Mexico City, Mexico; Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT; Secrist | Beach, Chicago, IL; The Parallax Center, Portland, OR; The Armory Show, New York, NY; among many others. Reviews of their work have appeared in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Artnet, and Hyperallergic. The duo is currently working on a permanent glass mosaic mural at Grand Central Station in New York City, which will be unveiled to the public in April 2025. For more information about the collective’s work, go towww.hilmasghost.com.