Exhibit Showcases Indigenous Cambridge Artist Creating Mosaic-Mural For School Complex
When the City of Cambridge's reconstructed Tobin Montessori and Darby Vassall Upper Schools complex opens this fall, one of the new additions will be a mosaic-mural by Cambridge artist Andromeda Lisle. The artwork depicts an adult humpback whale and calf swimming together in Lisle’s signature artistic language—animals, organic shapes, cellular patterns, and symbolic references to life cycles.
The exhibition “Spirits of Inspiration”—on view at Cambridge Arts’ Gallery 344, 344 Broadway, Cambridge, from
April 14 to July 18, 2025—offers a look at the full range of Lisle’s art, including paintings, masks, posters, a book, and documentation of murals. Join us for a
free opening reception on Monday, April 28, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. .
“I hope to inspire interest and a broad realization that science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin, and that just as they are irrevocably connected to one another, so are we to the world in which we live,” says Lisle, whose art draws upon her Tsalagi (Cherokee), Black, and Irish ancestry.
The exhibition includes a preview of Lisle's upcoming whale mural for Tobin, which was commissioned under the city’s Percent-for-Art ordinance, which requires that 1 percent of the construction costs on municipal capital projects be designated for use in developing site-responsive public artwork. The mosaic-mural that Lisle designed is being fabricated in custom glass and ceramic mosaic tiles by the firm Mosaika of Montreal.
Lisle’s art features falcons, serpents, herons, rabbits, ravens, bears, elk. “Animals play an integral role in Indigenous cultures across the Americas, serving as guardians, paragons, mentors, and teachers on how our world works,” she says.
Lisle, a graduate of Cambridge Rindge & Latin High School, has also designed posters for the City of Newton’s change from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day in 2022 and other Indigenous-focused events throughout the year.
“My interest in art and science has always been a part of me, but growing up in Cambridge fostered these passions and gave me the tools to express and build upon these core parts of life,” Lisle says. “As someone of mixed heritage, identity has also played an integral role in the direction of my creativity. Drawing upon my Tsalagi (Cherokee), Black, and Irish ancestry, I unite aspects of their indigenous arts in celebration of both science and spirituality.”
