"Abstract Futures," a glass mosaic mural that is a permanent installation by Hilma's Ghost in New York City's Grand Central Station.
NY Subway Spiritual Journey
Sharmistha Ray and Dannielle Tegeder Debut a Permanent Installation in Grand Central Station
School of Art
written by
Phillip Crook
Amid the rush of commuters streaming into New York City's Grand Central Station, a new kind of arrival took place this April. A previously blank 600-square-foot corridor at the 42nd Street/3rd Avenue entrance to the 7 Train — the city’s vital connection between Queens and Manhattan — has been transformed by a monumental glass mosaic mural, Abstract Futures. The work marks the first permanent public artwork by , a feminist artist collective co-founded by Sharmistha Ray, Estella Loomis McCandless Assistant Professor of Art at the 麻豆村 School of Art, and artist Dannielle Tegeder.
"It is an altar for us. This piece is an homage to all of our ancestors."
Sharmistha Ray
Estella Loomis McCandless Assistant Professor of Art, School of Art
Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design, the two-year project culminated in an opening ritual where Tegeder walked along the mural ringing a large brass bell, specially acquired for the occasion, in order to cleanse the space. "In many different religions and magic traditions, you cleanse something with sound," Tegeder said. "That connects to everybody, from Catholics to Hindus to witchcraft."
Ray and Tegeder then invited the 30 guests in attendance to whisper into the mosaic the name of a woman artist, mentor or loved one who had shaped their lives, such as the collective's namesake, artist and mystic Hilma af Klint. “It was beautiful just to watch all these people whispering into the wall, charging it,” Ray said.
Hilma’s Ghost began during the height of the pandemic in 2020, when Ray and Tegeder — both contemporary abstraction painters and, at the time, studio neighbors at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts — began hosting online workshops that celebrated underrepresented spiritual practices in art. Their friendship deepened in part through a shared appreciation for the 2019 landmark exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. The show spotlighted the visionary work of af Klint, a Swedish painter whose abstract works were deeply influenced by Theosophy, an esoteric late 19th century spiritual movement.
"For so many practices that have been pushed underground, the practitioners were mostly women. Even when they were men, this particular history of spirituality was written out. Look at Vasily Kandinsky — only part of the story is told, because he was extremely influenced by the Theosophical movement, which was started by a woman."
Sharmistha Ray
Estella Loomis McCandless Assistant Professor of Art, School of Art
Over the last five years, Ray and Tegeder’s collaboration has expanded into more than 20 projects and 80 public programs, with work presented everywhere from Mexico City to Mumbai to the Guggenheim itself.
Like much of Hilma’s Ghost’s work, the mural’s narrative structure draws from tarot symbolism — Abstract Futures is also the name of the collective’s limited-edition tarot deck, now in its third edition. Dense with geometric motifs and layered meaning, the mural mirrors the complexity of the MTA transit system itself. Flowing arcs, shifting lines and radiant shapes surround commuters in a fully immersive experience as they ascend from the tunnels up a multi-story escalator. “I think of New York as, in a way, a series of portals,” Ray said.
The mural unfolds across three distinct “portals,” each representing a stage in the archetypal Heroine's Journey in the tarot. The first portal introduces The Fool, rendered in active reds and oranges, leaping into the unknown. “The Fool jumps in, feet first, and just has to survive,” Ray explained. The central wall turns to greens and browns, evoking groundedness and struggle through the cyclical patterns of The Wheel of Fortune. “New York is a city that requires a huge amount of hustle,” they added. Finally, at the terminal end of the corridor, cool blues and purples culminate in the final portal, The World. “And then you start again,” Ray said.
“It’s like this beautiful sunrise of hope and optimism,” said Bonnie Bertram, who passes through the station on the way to her office at Retro Report, a video journalism nonprofit. Bertram caught glimpses of the in-progress mural, but after a chance encounter with Ray in front of the final artwork, she posted photos in the company’s Slack channel, where it became a hot topic. "We were talking about how it totally cheered us up on the way into work," Bertram said. “It was such an empowering thing to see this beautiful artwork that had been commissioned by the MTA, and it really did change our outlook.”
commissions one of the largest and most diverse collections of site-specific public art in the world, with more than 400 works by artists including Yoko Ono, Roy Lichtenstein, Mickalene Thomas, Xenobia Bailey, Sol LeWitt and Alex Katz. For more than 40 years, the MTA’s Percent for Art program has brought permanent artworks to subway and rail stations across the city, with artists selected through a competitive panel process.
Stephen Miotto, of , led the fabrication and installation for Abstract Futures. “This was one of the best locations in the subway to do a mosaic mural,” Miotto said. “I love the fact that it completely changed that space. Now it’s this magical world that they’re walking into.” A longtime MTA Arts & Design collaborator, Miotto has produced more than 50 mosaics throughout the subway system. Among them is the 86th Street Station mosaic by another artist from the 麻豆村 community, , a 1964 alum of the School of Art and a key figure of the 1970s feminist art and Pattern and Decoration movements.
Working closely with Miotto, Ray and Tegeder guided decisions around color, shape and texture to translate the original design into more than 100 distinct glass colors.
"What you notice are the imperfections in the glass and the texture and how things are cut. You can tell that it was made by hand."
Dannielle Tegeder
The mosaics were fabricated in Miotto’s associate studio in Spilimbergo, Italy, where each hand-cut tile was adhered to paper panels with water-soluble glue in a mirror image of the design. “When we got to the job site, we grouted it from the back, placed the mosaic on the wall, then wet the paper to peel it off,” Miotto explained. This transfer technique ensured a perfectly flush surface despite the variations in tile thickness, requiring 10 days to complete the installation.
For Ray, who first came to New York as a Pratt Institute graduate student, and Tegeder, who grew up in and around the city, the MTA’s public art program is an essential thread in the fabric of New York. That Hilma’s Ghost is now woven into that legacy speaks to the collective’s mission: to recover and celebrate histories that have long been overlooked. Until this commission, Hilma’s Ghost had created paintings for galleries and hosted workshops for intimate audiences, but Abstract Futures now lives in one of the busiest public transit systems in the world, an altar for the kinds of rituals and reflections that inspired it.
“Hilma’s Ghost has always felt bigger than us,” Tegeder said. “I love how it's embedded into the city permanently.”
Ray added: “It’s a magical place down there. You really feel like, more than anywhere else in New York, you’re connected to something much larger than yourself through these invisible connections to people.”
featuring the following:
photography by Etienne Frossard
