In ‘Reading the Rooms,’ Gretchen Scherer ‘Opens Up’ Historic, Art-Filled Spaces
The wealthy in society have been known to spare no expense when it comes to building palatial residences with impressively high-ceilinged rooms and enviable art collections. Visits to U.K. National Trust properties like Attingham Park in Shropshire and other historic estates serve as reminders of aristocratic obsessions with opulence and legacy, with their soaring ceilings and salon-style installations of portraits in wallpapered halls. But then, there’s also something ineffably satisfying about a room in miniature.
For Gretchen Scherer, centuries-old rooms in grand houses and institutions serve as the foundation for an ongoing series of paintings of luminous interiors. She starts with photos sourced online, from books, and that she snaps herself, in addition to drawing inspiration from artists like Narcissa Niblack Thorne, who commissioned meticulously crafted miniatures of period rooms to house her vast collection of 1:12-scale furniture. Scherer then tries to “open up” the space, as she describes it, toying a bit with perspective.
Scherer’s solo show Reading the Rooms, which opens next month at Richard Heller Gallery, adds to her repertoire of historic locations, such as U.K. National Trust properties and other European landmarks and museums. “In my work, there’s always been a tension between real life and the imagined,” she says in a statement. “Using places that are fixed and exist in the world, in a certain way, helps me to draw attention to this tension.”
The artist’s lively, illustrative paintings of historic rooms brim with paintings and period furnishings that transport us to earlier eras while emphasizing a bright, contemporary palette. Every object, be it a book, a candlestick, or a noble portrait above a mantle, is given equal attention, drawing our eye around the canvas like a two-dimensional cabinet of curiosities. There’s so much going on that one can imagine miniature compositions within the larger one, as doorways open up to further rooms and furniture is arranged around art displays.
“All the little paintings, sculptures, and furniture within the painting come from the actual collection and become the animated elements in an otherwise empty space,” Scherer says. “Some of the paintings in this show feel more empty and breathless and others feel very alive and playful. I think they oscillate between those two poles.”
Reading the Rooms opens February 21 and continues through March 21 in Santa Monica. See more on the artist’s Instagram.
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