Damien Hoar de Galvan was born in 1979 in Northampton, Massachusetts. As an infant, he lived in both western Massachusetts and Argentina, where his father is from. After celebrating his second birthday in Argentina, his family relocated to Beverly, Massachusetts—his mother’s hometown—where he lived through high school.

Following his graduation from Beverly High School, Hoar de Galvan attended Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, where he played on the soccer team and earned a degree in Behavioral Science in 2001. After graduating, he briefly lived in Portland, Oregon, where he began painting and considering a career as an artist.

In 2002, he moved to Boston, focusing primarily on painting and collage for the next five years. In 2007, he entered the Post-Baccalaureate program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), completing the program in 2008. During his time at SMFA, he began working in sculpture, spending much of his time in the wood shop.

Since 2008, Hoar de Galvan has worked across a range of materials and approaches, with wooden sculpture emerging as his primary medium. In 2025, he was awarded the James and Audrey Foster Prize from the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Boston. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States. He lives and works in Milton, Massachusetts.