HEARTSPACE | Wes Bruce
Berkshire Art Center (BAC) announces the launch of the HeartSpace Artist Residency, a new initiative that reflects its evolution into a more expansive, community-centered creative hub.
The inaugural resident, multidisciplinary artist Wes Bruce, will activate BAC’s Citizens’ Hall in Stockbridge and lead programming throughout the Berkshires beginning in May 2026.
Step into HeartSpace — a magical, immersive installation by Wes Bruce.
Created as part of Berkshire Art Center’s inaugural HeartSpace Artist Residency, Wes transforms Citizens’ Hall, inviting us to see our historic home anew — as if creativity itself is growing through and beyond the building’s frame.
Wes asks: What seeds wait within you? What flourishing rests just below your surface? What futures can we create from our histories?
“I am interested in the immersive, enveloping qualities that painting and architecture share — their dialogue and conversation, and the ways they invite, transform, and transport us. I am especially drawn to staircases, doorways, and thresholds: living metaphors brimming with possibility. Through surface bending, poetry, and acts of noticing, I seek to reveal the latent, ephemeral qualities of physical spaces — to uncover the softness within rigid materials. I am interested in how things become other things, and how objects and spaces can become invitations for human flourishing.”
About the HeartSpace Residency
HeartSpace is an artist residency program that supports artists in creating work and public-facing experiences that use creativity as a vital form of communication and connection. Through participatory and collaborative art-making, artists engage communities of all ages in shared creative experiences.
The Drifting Studio
Bruce’s Drifting Studio is a traveling, interactive art space extending the spirit of HeartSpace beyond the gallery. Installed outside Citizens’ Hall, it offers open-ended creative activities for visitors of all ages, encouraging experimentation, imagination, and shared making.
About Wes Bruce
Wes Bruce is a multidisciplinary artist whose work blends installation, storytelling, and community engagement. Emphasizing participation and collaboration, his projects have been featured at institutions including MASS MoCA, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Denver Children’s Museum. He lives and works in Chatham, New York.
This project is supported in part by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation’s Artist Resource Trust, with additional support from the MillTown Foundation.
In-Process Photos & videos
Wes Bruce, Berkshire Art Center's inaugural HeartSpace Artist in Residence starts his art installation in the interior of the stairwell and foyer of Citizens' Hall, Stockbridge!
Wes Bruce explains his process while working on the inaugural HeartSpace art installation at Citizens' Hall, Stockbridge, home of the Berkshire Art Center.