Spotlight from the Adama Exhibition: Lisa Hammerman Cain

Lisa Cain Hammerman is a Boston-born visual artist, illustrator, and longtime educator who has made her home in Israel since 1980. Trained in classical and digital techniques—with two degrees in visual art from Brandeis University and the University of Pennsylvania and recipient of several prestigious scholarships—Lisa’s work spans landscape, portraiture, silk Judaica, and children’s illustration. After many years of teaching and raising a family, she returned full-time to her studio practice, bringing with her a lifetime of movement, growth, and spiritual exploration. In the Adama exhibition, Lisa presents three works that reveal an artist deeply attuned to life’s turning points; its joys, its traumas, and its searching paths toward meaning and belonging. “Asher in the Sukkah” (2020), depicts Lisa’s husband, wrapped in tallit and tefillin, seated on their porch during the festival of Sukkot. Sunlight filters through the slats of the fence, creating rhythmic lines of light that echo the structure of the sukkah itself. Trees and neighboring homes anchor the scene in quiet domesticity. For Lisa—whose life has traced many routes—this moment of rooted serenity is especially precious. The title carries a double meaning: Asher, her husband’s name, translates to “happiness” and is the name of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Therefore “Asher in the Sukkah” also reflects the joy and the ancestral continuity embodied in the scene. “Tekumah – Burnt Cars” (2025), was created shortly before the Adama artists met for the first time. After visiting the site of the Nova music festival, where so many young lives were brutally taken on October 7th, Lisa was struck by the haunting rows of burnt vehicles—mute witnesses to tragedy. In this work, she renders the rusted, twisted metal with the precision, above which a luminous sky presides. The dissonance between unthinkable violence and the world’s unbroken beauty is searing, capturing both the rawness of national grief and the quiet persistence of life. “Lessons and Ladders” (2025), is an interactive artist’s book that reflects the many “rungs” of Lisa’s life journey—from Boston to Israel, from classroom to studio, from wandering to rootedness. Each page explores a formative moment that shaped her identity and artistic voice, culminating in her deepened connection to Jewish tradition and her choice to build her creative and spiritual home in Israel. This work grew directly out of the conversations, introspection, and artistic exchange that unfolded during the Adama project. Together, Lisa’s works offer a compelling portrait of an artist who uses classical technique and deeply personal imagery to explore memory, faith, home, and the profound resilience of the human spirit.