MONDAY, MAY 18, 2026, 4PM - 6PM | YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, 15 LONG SANDS ROAD, YORK, ME
Join us for a special offsite edition of Meet the Residents at the York Public Library on Monday, May 18 from 4-6pm to meet residents Sharmistha Ray, Dahn Gim, and Soulaf Abas.
Meet the Residents is a public program series that offers resident artists and art professionals the option to share their work with the public during their time at Surf Point. While these gatherings typically take place at Surf Point at the end of a residency session, this event will be held mid-session at the York Public Library.
We've found it is very helpful for people to understand our community values and expectations in advance of our events. Please take the time to read through them here.
The event is free and open to the public. Space is limited and registration is required.
Donations are optional and deeply appreciated. Surf Point is a 501c3 public charity. In order to maintain our public charity status, we must raise funds from the broad public to show support beyond large donations. Your support in any amount, from $1, is beneficial to Surf Point being able to demonstrate public support and supports our programs.
We hope you’ll join us to experience Surf Point in action. Learn more about Surf Point here.
For questions, please contact info@surfpoint.me.
About the residents
Sharmistha Ray (Pittsburgh, PA)
Sharmistha Ray (they/them) is a visual artist and Estella Loomis McCandless Assistant Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. Their artistic practice uses modes of abstraction to explore imagery related to Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies, the patterning and ornamentation of South Asian crafts, and sacred architecture in relationship to global modernisms and queer futurity. Working primarily in painting and drawing, they have also made work in sculpture, artist books, and animation.
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’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions and projects internationally at The Guggenheim, New York, NY; The Shepherd, Detroit, MI; The Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Galería RGR, Mexico City, Mexico; Nature Morte, New Delhi, India; Secrist|Beach, Chicago, IL; and others. Public projects include a permanent 600 square foot glass mosaic installed inside Grand Central Station, New York, NY.
Visit Sharmistha’s website here.
Dahn Gim (Minneapolis, MN)
Dahn Gim works through material transformation, altering and reassembling repurposed objects and personal archives to navigate shifting boundaries between familiar and unfamiliar, known and unknown.
After completing her MFA from UCLA, she has exhibited internationally at venues including Somerset House (UK), Post Territory Ujeongguk and DDP (South Korea), Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Hammer Museum, PST ART: Art & Science Colide, Human Resources, Steve Turner Gallery (LA), Currents New Media (Santa Fe), Rochester Art Center, and Hair and Nails Gallery (Minneapolis/New York City).
Gim is a recipient of the 2026 Minnesota State Arts Board’s Creative Individual Grant, 2025 MRAC Artist Impact Grant, and the 2024 McKnight Visual Artist Felowship. Born in Busan, South Korea, and raised in Toronto, Canada, she is currently based in Minneapolis, MN.
Soulaf Abas (Terre Haute, IN)
Soulaf was born and raised in Damascus, Syria. In 2008 she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Indiana State University. Then, she returned to Syria and taught art at the Arab European University. She also spent some time translating books and articles in Arabic and English.
In 2010, Soulaf returned to Indiana State University to get her masters in Fine Arts. After she received her MFA in painting in 2013, she taught part time at Indiana State University. Soulaf went back to visit her family in Damascus-Syria in the summer of 2012, a year after the revolution began. Upon her return from Syria, she started creating images in painting and printmaking that depicted what she’d experienced. She continues to explore the effects of loss and trauma in her oil painting and printmaking works.
Her work was exhibited nationally and internationally. She also received multiple residencies and awards for her work like the Social Justice Residency in Santa Fe, NM, and multiple ELCE Grants from Indiana State University. Soulaf lives and works in Terre Haute, Indiana with her partner, dogs, cat, and many plants.
Visit Soulaf'’s website here.