What Ingleside Gallery is about
Most people think a gallery is just a room with paintings in it. It's much more particular than that. Different types of galleries help different kinds of people. A big gallery downtown is usually for someone who already collects seriously, with a robust collection and a big budget. Ingleside Gallery is for someone buying their first five to ten local artworks to hang in their home. There aren't many places that will take a chance on an artist who's still building a name. So there's a real gap, and that's where we work best.
Where it started
Ingleside Gallery began on Ocean Avenue in 2021, in the Ingleside neighborhood itself, which is where the name comes from. It left that first storefront in 2022 and was invited to curate shows at Ballast Coffee in West Portal, that's our flagship gallery today.
Ballast is where Ingleside runs its solo shows: one artist, a full body of work, hung properly on the Hangz gallery system. Everywhere else the gallery shows up, things work differently. Some locations run group shows. Some come together around a specific partner or a specific opportunity that fits. Ballast gets the gallery's full attention and is our primary residence.
Who runs it
Shrey Purohit founded Ingleside Gallery in 2021 and still runs it — an artist, administrator, and advocate for the arts. He moved to San Francisco in 2018, from Mumbai. He paints the city itself, its streets and its old buildings, and alongside the gallery he curates shows across San Francisco with ArtSpan. His own work has been recognized with a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission.
"The Ingleside neighborhood made me the person I am, which is part of why the gallery keeps the name, and is rooted in returning to neighborhoods."
Why a coffee shop
Art hung in a coffee shop gets seen by more people, on ordinary days, than most art in a formal gallery ever does with flashy events. That's the bet Ingleside Gallery makes. Art belongs where San Franciscans are, not tucked away for people who already know to go looking for it.
Ingleside Gallery doesn't represent artists in the ongoing sense a traditional white-walled gallery might. We feature them, one show at a time, and we keep promoting that work long after the show comes down. It's a different relationship, built around a single body of work getting the attention it deserves, we work selectively on adding to our long-term roster.
If you want to host a show
If you run a business in San Francisco and want local, well-made, original art on your walls, Ingleside Gallery makes that simple. With turn-key solutions, we handle the whole thing in consultation with the venue: choosing the artist, curating the show, hanging the work, promoting it, managing sales and buyers, and deinstallation. What you get is a finished exhibition, without needing to know anything about running the complex systems yourself.
What Ingleside Gallery isn't
This isn't a consignment store. Unknown artists don't drop off a painting and it goes straight on the wall. We don't accept unsolicited artworks. Every show comes out of hours of curatorial time spent with the artist first — studio visits, deep conversations, understanding the work before committing a wall to it.
It also wasn't built for tourists. It was built for locals who live here, though tourists are always welcome. Some of what visitors spend in this city, through the hotel tax, helps fund the San Francisco Arts Commission grants that support working artists, Shrey included. So even someone stopping in for a coffee and a look is part of how this city keeps its art alive, whether they realize it or not.
How it's funded
The gallery runs on Shrey's own labor and direction. It's supported by people who believe in it, and by his own art practice: selling paintings, working multiple jobs with non-profits, doing outside curatorial work. Some shows get extra help from local partners who want to see this keep happening. But there's no big team behind any of it, no sales staff, no office. It's one person and an art studio worth of infrastructure, running on coffee, chai, and the stubbornness to believe that artists working hard deserve real support and a real opportunity.
Support the gallery
If you'd like to support the gallery directly, without buying a specific piece, you can make a one-time donation here.
For artists
If you're an artist and you're curious, the interest form is the best way in. Shrey reads and answers every one himself. The newsletter form on the home page gets you onto our email list, so you hear about upcoming shows, sent to about 800 people who actually care about local art. Once you've shown with Ingleside Gallery, you stay part of it.
Collector network
Our newsletter is an informal network of people who've supported past shows — collectors, in the loosest sense of the word. When a new show comes together, they're often the first to hear about it, sometimes before the public announcement goes out.
It's a list of supporters, not a sales list. Emails don't pressure anyone to buy, and nobody's ever pushed toward a show that isn't a fit for them. It exists because people have shown up for artist after artist, show after show, and they deserve to know what's coming before anyone else does. When we show new work, we do it in confidence that it deserves the support, and with belief in the work itself.
The same is true once you've supported a show: you're not a line item. You're someone who believed in an artist before anyone else did, and that stays true long after the sale is done. An early art career sale matters more than most people realize.
Press & Recognition
SF Examiner: SF exhibition brings artists to Marina and West Portal sites, 2026
Mission Local: Photo Essay: Dudes by Ted Weinstein, 2026
SF Standard: Instagram reel on SF coffee shops doubling as art galleries, featuring Ingleside Gallery at Ballast Coffee, 2026
Ingleside Light: A Gallery Named Ingleside Finds A Home In West Portal, 2025
Roborant Review: Gaps and Glances, Sarah K. Horowitz, Ingleside Gallery by Kelly Jean Egan, 2025
Ingleside Light: Ingleside Gallery Kicks Off 2022 With Show Honoring Neighborhood Artists, 2022
Ingleside Light: 'Ingleside Gallery' Pop-Up Highlights Emerging Artists, 2021
Certificate of Honor from the Assessor-Recorder of the County & City of San Francisco, 2021