While rooted in the story of the Holocaust, Lisa Cohen’s exhibit “Beneath the Layers” tells a story of determination, resilience, and love. The love of a mother who will do anything to rescue her five children from Nazi Germany and bring them to the United States. It is also a story of honoring personal history of lessons learned from one generation to the next: the story of grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and granddaughters.

Oma’s Blues, 20″ x 16″, Image transfer on patinated metal

“Beneath the Layers: A Family Story of Courage & Resilience”, a solo exhibition by N.E.W. member Lisa Cohen at Preservation Hall in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, is on view August 1-30, 2025 with an opening reception Friday, August 1 from 4-7 pm and an Artist Talk Monday, August 11 at 6pm. Cohen’s powerful, large-scale mixed media works combine photographic imagery printed on fiber with layers of encaustic wax.

Cohen tells the story of her grandmother, Käthe Oppenheimer—a woman of strength, complexity, and silence, who rarely spoke of her exile from Nazi Germany. Through layered images and translucent materials, the artist reveals stories carried forward not through words, but through fragments—photos, memories, gestures, and generations. Photographic transfers onto aged metal and wax-embedded fabric create a luminous transparency—symbolic of the hidden and layered histories at play.

Käthe’s Wedding, 53″x 41″, photographs printed on cloth, sewn, painted with encaustic wax

The project began with a family archive: boxes of old photographs found after the death of Cohen’s grandmother. These images became portals into a forgotten past, leading to a journey across Europe with the artist’s daughter to trace their family’s wartime footsteps. Along the way, they uncovered extraordinary histories—such as the role of Heinz Oppenheimer, Cohen’s grandfather, in helping journalist Varian Fry rescue artists and intellectuals, including Marc Chagall, Hannah Arendt, and Marcel Duchamp.

Through their Eyes, 12″ x 12″, photographs printed on cloth, sewn, painted with encaustic wax on antique ceiling tile

The idea for this exhibit took on new urgency after the loss of Cohen’s mother during the COVID-19 pandemic. The two had been planning a joint exhibition pairing the mother’s written memories with the artist’s visual work—a dream deferred, but not abandoned. “I felt like I needed to pursue it still,” Cohen says. In Through Their Eyes, Cohen pays homage to her mother and grandmother by combining images of those who came before her, along with photos of herself and her daughter.

While rooted in the Holocaust and her family’s escape, Beneath the Layers is a fiercely contemporary work. “It scares me to my core how history keeps repeating itself,” the artist says, drawing parallels between her family’s past and today’s global refugee crises and the inhumanity of ICE policies here in the United States. 

Ring 18, Gleiwitz, 20×16″, Photo transfer on patinated metal

Cohen’s work challenges viewers to see beyond the surface—to feel both the terror and resilience of families displaced by violence, then and now.

“Everyone has a story like mine,” Cohen says. “We’ve all faced the feeling of not belonging. My hope is that this work helps people connect their own histories to others’, and to understand that we must remember—not just for ourselves, but to protect those still fighting to survive.”

Written by Anne Hebebrand, a New England Wax member