I grew up in India, keenly interested in photography and film. At fifteen, I persuaded members of my extended family to act in my Bengali movie version of W.W. Jacobs' Monkey's Paw which I filmed with a home video camera owned by one of the leads. Unfortunately, my plan of editing the film by playing off one VCR and recording into another turned out to be a disaster, leaving many angry actors in its wake. A career in the visual arts would seem a natural one to me, but not to prudent Indian parents. I took an engineering degree which enabled me to emigrate at twenty-five to the US.

For the next decade, while variously working full-, part-time, and sometimes not at all, I've been developing photographic techniques to match my emotional responses to my adoptive home.


Exhibitions:

  • Elements of Water (2010), at Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, judged by John Paul Caponigro
  • \'flō\: art, text, new media (2009), at Center for Book Arts, New York, curated by Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, Curator, Jersey City Museum
  • It's Still Life (2009), at Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco
  • Finalist, Critical Mass 2008, Photolucida
  • 59th Annual Art of the Northeast (2008) at Silvermine Guild Arts Center, New Canaan, CT, curated by Thom Collins, Director, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
  • Paradox of Water, Westport Arts Center (2008), CT, curated by Mary Sabbatino, Vice President, Galerie Lelong, New York
  • 12th Soho Photo National Competition (2007), New York, curated by Mia Fineman, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • 58th Annual Art of the Northeast (2007), curated by Valerie Smith, Director, Queens Museum of Art, NY
  • Ridgefield Guild of Artists' Annual Juried exhibition (2007), CT, curated by Cheryl Brutvan, Beal Curator of Contemporary Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • Photowork '06, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, curated by Allison Morley, chair of Photojournalism and Documentary, ICP, New York, NY
  • Muse Gallery (2006), Philadelphia, curated by Stephen Perloff, Photo Review publisher
  • Westmoreland Art Nationals, PA, 2005
  • American Outdoors, a two-person exhibition at the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, Blue Mountain Lake, New York, 2004


email: shayok@shortwork.net     phone: 914-843-9608