Betty Greene Apartments
In Roxbury, MA, art_works developed an art program for a 100% affordable, transit-oriented housing complex that honors the living memory of community advocate Betty Greene through artwork centered on memory.
Industry: Real Estate
Company Partners: Utile Inc., Urban Edge
Services: Art Program Development, Artwork Sourcing, Visitor Engagement, Installation
Featured Artists: Sri Thumati, Steven J. Cabral, Whitney Stoker
Goal + Impact: The Betty Greene Apartments are named after Betty Greene, a beloved community advocate whose dedication to Roxbury shaped the neighborhood for decades. Our curatorial approach to the project honored that legacy by treating memory not as subject matter, but as medium. We partnered with three local, emerging artists whose practices each engage with memory differently — in process, material, and time.
Sri Thumati works in cyanotype, a photographic process in which light chemically burns an image into paper. Made through an irreversible process, her botanical compositions are frozen in Prussian blue, capturing nature's fleeting patterns.
Steven J. Cabral works in the opposite register. His mixed-media paintings build through accumulation: layers of acrylic, crayon, colored pencil, and flashe pressed into dense, gestural surfaces. Where Thumati preserves, Cabral builds, conjuring the quiet traces of habitual labor from material residue.
Whitney Stoker's monotype prints operate on their own logic: each impression is made with the same tools, yet every work is unique. Distinct yet related at once, her prints function like memory itself: they are part of telling the same story, but never quite repeating.
Installed in proximity, the works in this program create a sustained dialogue between patience and immediacy, permanence and flux. Together, they encourage residents to practice the kind of presence that defined Betty Greene's lifelong commitment to community.
Artwork pictured:
Sri Thumati, Drip, printed 2025. Giclée fine art print. © Sri Thumati.
Steven J. Cabral, Ineffable Patterns #8, 2021. Acrylic, crayon, colored pencil, flashe on canvas. © Steven J. Cabral.
Whitney Stoker, Monoprints 1, 2, 3, & 5, 2023. Monotype. © Whitney Stoker.
Installation photography by Jane Messinger.
