About Me
I am an Austin native currently completing my M.A. in Art History at UT Austin. Previously, I was a Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow in the Asian Art department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, a Research and Interpretation Intern at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and a Graduate Trainee at Christie’s, where I held positions in the Client Services, South Asian Art, and Modern & Impressionist departments.
My research focuses on modern and contemporary South Asian art, with an emphasis on how artists represent and navigate political and religious identities. I am also interested in photography, photobooks/artists books, and diasporic art.
You can learn more about me and my work below!
Timeline
August 2022 - present: I am currently pursuing my M.A. in Art History at the University of Texas, Austin. After receiving the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship in Kannada, I decided to leave Christie’s and return to Austin to pursue my M.A. in Art History. The FLAS Fellowship funds my Master’s degree and pays me a stipend so I can take intensive language and area studies classes. At UT, I have learned so much from South Asian Area Studies alongside my art history coursework. You can learn more about my current research as a graduate student here!
August 2021: I fulfilled a childhood dream of mine and moved to New York City! Growing up, I loved watching 30 Rock and dreamed of being a writer and creative like Liz Lemon. Now, I was being paid to write about and work with art at my new job at 20 Rockefeller Plaza: Christie’s. As a Graduate Trainee at Christie’s, I was part of a cohort of six recent graduates (two in NYC, two in London, two in Hong Kong) selected to rotate between departments, learn about the business, and eventually transition into full-time roles in a specialist department. At Christie’s I worked in the following:
Client Services: In Client Services, I liaised between clients and numerous Christie’s departments, coordinating specialist evaluations, maintaining client and object databases, and registering people for auctions.
South Asian Modern + Contemporary/Indian, Himalayan, & Southeast Asian Art: In this department (which spans both historic and modern South/Southeast Asian art), I worked in both an administrative and research capacity, communicaating with clients and other specialists, researching incoming property, processing books for the internal library, assisting with condition reports, and my favorite part - writing lot essays. One major highlight was working on the Mahinder and Sharad Tak Collection sale, seeing the project from initial proposal, to learning about the amazing artworks in the collection, to the final record-breaking auction.
Modern & Impressionist: In this department, I focused heavily on provenance research while continuing to provide object research, administrative support, and contribute lot essays to upcoming sales. I really enjoyed learning more about European art and discovered a new favorite artist, Odilon Redon, who actually depicted Hindu mythology in his work.
June 2021: I began the Research and Interpretation Internship at The Whitney Museum of American Art. During my internship, I produced research guides on then-upcoming exhibitions about Jasper Johns and My Barbarian, wrote and edited audio guide stops, worked on a research project analyzing docent pay structures at different American museum, and completed numerous other tasks (such as archiving exhibition materials, editing object labels, and more).
At the same time, I received the Andree F. Sjoberg Scholarship for Dravidian Studies, a full-tuition scholarship to attend the South Asia Summer Language Institute at UT Austin. With this scholarship, I completed First-Year Kannada I and II as summer intensive classes. Commonly spoken in Karnataka, India, Kannada is my family’s mother tongue and I was excited to formally study it. Completing a language intensive, working full-time, and preparing for my big post-grad move took a lot of work, but it was absolutely worth it!
May 2021: I graduated summa cum laude from Trinity with a B.A. in Art History (Honors) and a Minor in History. I wrote my honors thesis about British photographer Mahtab Husain - you can learn more about that project here.
August 2020: I completed the Curatorial Fellowship. My culminating project consisted of two curatorial projects, Synthetic Anatomies and Capturing the Subcontinent, which you can learn more about here.
October 2019 - June 2020: I studied abroad at St. Catherine’s College (often called Catz) at the University of Oxford. I learned so much from the radically different educational system, which focused on centered, in-depth tutorials where I was often the only student. I took personalized, intensive classes on Chinese, South Asian, Egyptian, and Roman art. I also worked in Catz’s dining hall and on the stage crew for my college’s drama society.
August 2018: I joined the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Asian Art department as a Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow. I researched the permanent collection, wrote acquisition reports and labels, assisted with fundraising opportunities, and gave public tours.
August 2017: I began my undergraduate education at Trinity University in San Antonio. I had so much fun in college trying new things. Some highlights include:
- becoming Vice President of PRIDE (the LGBT+ Society)
- fundraising for the San Antonio AIDS Foundation (with my sorority) and the San Antonio Children’s Hospital (through Dance Marathon)
- dancing with the bhangra team
- producing, writing, hosting, and working the camera for the campus TV station
June 2007: I got my first job at age 8 when I was hired to play the physical manifestation of Jesus Christ’s consciousness in an unorthodox staging of Jesus Christ Superstar at Zach Scott Theater. I have been working in the arts ever since!
