The feminist art collective Hilma’s Ghost, founded by artists Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray, is reclaiming the role of alternative spiritualities and the occult within art history. Sparked by the 2018 Hilma af Klint retrospective at the Guggenheim, the collective emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic as a research-based project that bridges artmaking with esoteric practices like tarot, witchcraft, and neo-tantric cosmologies. Through workshops and collaborative paintings, the duo explores how women and queer artists have historically been erased from the canon due to their unconventional, mystical methods.
This initiative matters because it challenges the traditional patriarchal and Western-centric narratives of art history that have long dismissed spiritualism as unscientific or fringe. By positioning themselves as "believing skeptics," Tegeder and Ray provide a framework for contemporary artists to engage with the sacred and the supernatural without stigma. Their work highlights a broader cultural shift toward acknowledging the diverse, non-secular influences that shaped modern abstraction and continue to inform social and feminist resistance today.