Berggruen Gallery is proud to unveil Cut From a Dream, a mesmerizing exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by celebrated contemporary artist Isca Greenfield-Sanders. The show opens on May 1 and runs through June 19, 2025, at Berggruen Gallery, located at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA.
This much-anticipated event marks Greenfield-Sanders’ sixth solo exhibition with the gallery, solidifying her standing as a visionary in the world of contemporary landscape painting. A public opening reception will be held on Thursday, May 1 from 5 to 7 PM, offering collectors, curators, and art lovers a chance to view the new collection and meet the artist in person.
Immersive Dreamscapes That Stir the Soul
Greenfield-Sanders has long captivated audiences with her unique blend of nostalgia-infused landscapes and painterly abstraction. In Cut From a Dream, she pushes her exploration of emotional memory and surrealism even further. Through sweeping aerial views, serene lakesides, and vibrant wildflower fields, her latest work invites viewers to step inside a visual reverie where personal history and collective memory collide.
The paintings exude a dreamlike atmosphere that blurs the line between reality and imagination. By layering images from her own life with anonymous vintage photography, Greenfield-Sanders creates compositions that feel simultaneously familiar and fantastical.
Blending Vintage and Personal Imagery to Evoke Memory
In a first for the artist, Cut From a Dream integrates personal photographs into her established practice of working from vintage 35mm slides from the 1950s and 60s. This subtle yet powerful evolution in her process results in an emotionally rich body of work where intimacy meets universality.
By fusing archival and autobiographical imagery, Greenfield-Sanders asks viewers to consider how memories are formed, shared, and transformed over time. The interplay between the collective nostalgia of found images and the deeply personal nature of family photographs creates a complex emotional tapestry that resonates on multiple levels.
A Dazzling Dance Between Realism and Abstraction
Each canvas in Cut From a Dream occupies a liminal space between the tangible and the ephemeral. In the captivating painting Red Wildflowers (2025), a field of scarlet blooms is set against a delicate blue sky. The brushwork captures the sensation of a gentle breeze, evoking the feeling of standing in a field surrounded by scent, color, and motion.
In Pink Lake (2024), the use of Opera Pink injects a vivid, surreal quality into a seemingly mundane landscape. The choice of such a bold color palette transforms the scene into a memory-saturated dream, elevating the emotional tone of the piece.
Greenfield-Sanders intentionally leans into the emotional over the literal, allowing her work to operate as a visual metaphor for memory itself — fluid, fragmented, and tinted by feeling.
Meticulous Artistic Process Rooted in Photography and Painting
Behind each painting lies a deeply intentional process that combines traditional techniques with modern insight. Greenfield-Sanders begins by gridding photographs and developing studies with colored pencil and watercolor, which are later collaged and translated into oil paintings.
This layered approach creates depth and texture, giving her paintings a tangible, almost sculptural quality. As light moves across the surface, hidden elements and delicate forms emerge, inviting slow contemplation.
The process mirrors the mental reconstruction of memory: an ever-evolving narrative built from fragments and sensations.
Bridging Classic Nostalgia with Contemporary Artistic Innovation
At the heart of Cut From a Dream lies a conversation between the past and the present. Greenfield-Sanders situates her work within the tradition of landscape painting while also responding to contemporary questions about photography, memory, and authenticity.
Her ability to walk the line between timeless beauty and modern introspection positions her as a leading figure in 21st-century figurative art. These new works are not merely pretty pictures — they are layered investigations of how we see, remember, and make meaning from our surroundings.
Meet the Artist: Isca Greenfield-Sanders
Born in New York City in 1978, Greenfield-Sanders brings a rare intellectual rigor to her practice. A graduate of Brown University with degrees in visual arts and mathematics, she approaches her compositions with both analytical structure and emotional intuition.
Her work has been exhibited internationally, with highlights including:
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver (solo show, 2010)
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
- The Brooklyn Museum
- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio
- The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Greenfield-Sanders has been featured in leading art and culture publications such as Artforum, ARTnews, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Harper’s Bazaar.
Don’t Miss This Unforgettable San Francisco Art Exhibition
Whether you're a seasoned collector, an art student, or someone who simply loves immersive and emotional visual storytelling, Cut From a Dream is a must-see event on the 2025 art calendar.
Greenfield-Sanders' evocative landscapes will leave you reflecting on your own memories, questioning the passage of time, and marveling at the beauty of the everyday.
Event Details
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 1, 2025 | 5 – 7 PM
Exhibition Title: Cut From a Dream
Artist: Isca Greenfield-Sanders
Dates: May 1 – June 19, 2025
Location: Berggruen Gallery, 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105