Heather Darcy Bhandari

Heather Darcy Bhandari is the Director of Exhibitions at Smack Mellon, a nonprofit exhibition and studio space program in Brooklyn, New York. Its mission is to nurture and support emerging, under-recognized mid-career, and women artists in the creation and exhibition of new work. She is also an independent curator, adjunct lecturer at Brown University, and a consultant to several for-profit and nonprofit arts institutions. Heather lectures and participates in portfolio reviews and panel discussions across the country. She is on the board of directors of visual arts at Art Omi (an artist residency in Ghent, New York) and the advisory boards of artfcity (an online, art-related publishing platform) and Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn. She was on the board of NURTUREart for nearly a decade. For the last fifteen years, she was a director of Mixed Greens gallery where she curated over one hundred exhibitions while managing a roster of nearly two-dozen emerging to mid-career artists. Heather received a BA from Brown University and an MFA from Pennsylvania State University. Her career began at contemporary galleries Sonnabend and Lehmann Maupin, both in New York City.