Small Works, Big Impact
How the considered placement of four small-scale sculptural works transforms a bookcase into a site of dynamic artistic dialogue in Cambridge, MA.
Photography by Will Howcroft Photography.
Artists: Elise Whittemore, Erin Woodbrey, Alison Croney Moses, Damien Hoar de Galvan
Location: Cambridge, MA
Partners: Sanofi, Gensler
Artwork:
Elise Whittemore, Black Quilt IV & Black Quilt I 2023. Monoprint, soy ink, and cotton thread. © Elise Whittemore.
Erin Woodbrey, The Three Strange Sisters (From the Carrier Bag Series), 2022. Single-use plastic, glass, foam containers, ash, plaster, gauze, and steel wire. © Erin Woodbrey.
Alison Croney Moses, What We Hold: Pod 3, 2022. Cedar and milk paint. © Alison Croney Moses;
Damien Hoar De Galvan, armor, 2021, wood, acrylic, spray paint, and glue; Zap, 2022, wood, acrylic, spray paint, and glue. © Damien Hoar de Galvan.
Goal + Impact: Artwork doesn't just happen on the walls. In a recent project for a public lobby in Cambridge, MA, we explored how sculpture—at every scale—can shape our experience of a space. From intimate handheld pieces to larger-scale bold gestures, each sculptural object becomes part of a larger conversation about form, material, and place.
Inside a bookcase punctuated by dynamic sculptural works, we placed small-scale sculptures by Elise Whittemore, Erin Woodbrey, Damien Hoar de Galvan, and Alison Croney Moses in intentional dialogue.
Elise's printmaking carries the logic of the quilt — individual sheets of paper pieced together into a whole, where the seams become part of the meaning. Erin's Carrier Bag sculptures transform single-use containers into forms that feel archaeological and quietly urgent, using wood ash, plaster, gauze, and wire. Damien overlays his assemblage wood forms with saturated color, layering acrylic and spray paint until the wood almost disappears beneath the hues. Alison takes the opposite approach: understated, organic, rendered in cedar and milk paint that honors the material's natural grain.
Together, the four works generate a dynamic tension — pieced versus poured, preserved versus painted, contemporary color theory meeting traditional craft. It's the kind of grouping that rewards a second look.
About the artists:
Elise Whittemore (lives and works in Grand Isle, Vermont) is a painter and printmaker whose work draws on the history of quiltmaking and its tradition of using geometric abstraction to articulate ideas of home, identity, and place. She holds a BFA from Syracuse University and pursued further study in woodblock printmaking and lithography at the Art Students' League in New York and painting at the School of Visual Arts. A longtime presence in the Vermont arts community, Whittemore has curated exhibitions across the state, taught young curators through Young Curators of Vermont, and received the mid-career Barbara Smail Award from Burlington City Arts in 2017.
Erin Woodbrey (lives and works in Massachusetts) is a visual artist, gardener, and beekeeper whose interdisciplinary practice encompasses sculpture, installation, printmaking, photography, and time-based media. Working with found objects, salvage materials, and homegrown matter, Woodbrey weaves together science, mythology, and material cultures across time to examine the existential and socio-political dimensions of climate change. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Boston Center for the Arts, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, and Goethe-Institut Boston, among others. Woodbrey holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.
Alison Croney Moses (lives and works in Roslindale, MA, and Allston, Boston, MA) creates wooden objects that reach for your senses — the smell of cedar, the glowing color of honey, the round form that signifies safety and warmth, the gentle curve that beckons to be touched. Born and raised in North Carolina by Guyanese parents, Croney Moses remembers making clothing, food, furniture, and art during her childhood. She cares deeply about why and how things are made and has carried these values and habits into adulthood and parenting, creating experiences, conversations, and educational programs that cultivate the current and next generation of artists and leaders in art and craft.
Damien Hoar de Galvan (lives and works in Milton, MA) has developed a unique output of painted sculpture made primarily from recycled wood for nearly 20 years. His sculptures range from smaller tabletop objects to larger wall-sized installations. Some of the wood Hoar de Galvan uses is reclaimed from his time as a preparator at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA, and from his father's carpentry projects, which he began in the 1970s as an immigrant to Massachusetts from Argentina.
