The artworks of American artist Isca Greenfield-Sanders invite the viewers on a nostalgic journey into the past.
Her paintings draw from an archive of collected photographs from the 1950s and ’60s—often candid vacation snapshots depicting beaches, family gatherings, and quiet, everyday scenes. Using a meticulous grid system, she transfers these images onto canvas and reinterprets them through layers of paint, translating the original source from one medium into another—a visual transformation that blurs the line between photography and painting.
Greenfield-Sanders´ work resonates with a sense of collective memory, evoking the intimate, familiar moments found in old family photo albums—children playing, seaside strolls, brief glimpses of joy and connection. The resulting paintings feel both delicate and nostalgic, capturing peaceful moments that now live on only as echoes of time gone by.
In “A Walk with Daddy (Blue)” (2005), a man and a child are seen from behind, walking hand in hand across an expansive pink beach. Their faces remain hidden as they move toward a busier shoreline in the background. Beachgoers and scattered umbrellas appear in the distance, rendered in simplified, schematic forms. The intensely blue sky contrasts sharply with the pink sand—creating a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere.
Saturated colors and softened contours evoke the sense of a faded memory—blurred, fleeting, yet deeply familiar. In much of Greenfield-Sanders’ work, figures appear from behind or at a distance, creating a sense of quiet detachment. This perspective positions the viewer as a silent observer. The result is an intimate, almost dreamlike experience, as if stepping into a moment both distant and strangely personal—a trace of something once known, now only half-remembered.
Angelina Nguyen
Isca Greenfield-Sanders (born 1978 in NYC, USA) earned her Bachelor of Arts in both Visual Arts and Mathematics at Brown University. Her works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including solo shows at gallery Miles McEnery (New York), Baldwin Gallery (Aspen), and Galerie Klüser (Munich), as well as group exhibitions at institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), and in the Stiftung Reinbeckhallen (Berlin).