Michigan VRBO by Ann Toebbe
The weather's finally cooling and the days are shortening, which means more time inside. While the end of summer is bittersweet, entering the "inside" part of the year is special, too.
For many, the home is a sacred spaceâa familial sanctuary and gathering place; a nest and a safe harbor; a place where personal expression can run wildâand to depict it is an intimate act.
Emotion-filled tableaus archive the physicality of artists' personal lives and the creative spaces they've carved out for themselves in their homes. In some cases, inner thoughts and dialogues are mirrored in the objects that appear in the piece. Visual Easter eggs for the viewer's discovery add extra layers of meaning to these scenes, such as in the work of painter JJ Manford, who incorporates a designed object created by someone he admires or an animal into each piece as part of his practice. The specificity of artifacts makes these interiors so captivating and relatable.Â
You may notice the unconventional perspectives in many of the pieces we've included here. In Michigan VRBO, above, Ann Toebbe plays with flatness and multiple points of viewâeach work can simultaneously have inside and outside views, views from above, and objects and figures portrayed from a straight-on view. This feels both inclusive and private: the viewer is invited into the frame from many angles, yet is asked to explore these slightly disorienting spaces with little context. This is a life that existsâand will go on existingâindependently from us, the temporary guests.
Whether you enter these works as a voyeur, looking for inspiration, or hoping to find yourself reflected in someone else's possessions, they are a sweet reminder that despite all of our differences, making sense of the world starts with our immediate surroundingsâand what we choose to surround ourselves with.
Rooms that may look like yours
Appleton Street (left); Time (top right); and Mental Load (bottom right) by Helena Wurzel
Utilizing her signature approach to depicting images from womenâs lives by wielding flat areas of paint in an electrifyingly vibrant palette, Helena Wurzel unlocks something extraordinary in everyday scenes. Her compositions are full of real objects that produce an emotional reaction in the viewer. The sketchbook on the floor of Time is also currently on this writer's bedroom floor. The belongings Wurzel chooses to include are breadcrumbs that both paint a picture and raise more questions. In Appleton Street above, are the sunglasses on the table and the bag next to the chair signs that she is present? Is this her home? Or is Appleton Street a memory of her first apartment, or a combination of multiple apartments? Or the realization of her ideal living room space? Even if imagined, this scene is very tangibly real.
A creative challenge
This image includes glimpses of the eclectic, colorful interior reflected by both the mirror itself and the cameraâs lens as a whole. Thereâs a worn, luxurious velvet burgundy couch piled high with vintage pillows in contrasting colors. The walls are art-filled and lime-washed. The mirror is perched on that most humble and universal of building materials: a cinder block; contrasting that rough concrete is a gold velour â70s ottoman, a slick satin-y red and blue striped curtain, and a rough, fuzzy brown floral rug.
Pearlâs work sings not just in hue but in texture. The whole rainbow is thereâand with the confidence bestowed upon the viewer, so too is a world of possibilities for self-expression.
A time capsule
Horace Pippin's self-taught, folk art style comes through beautifully in this piece, painted in 1945 (just a year before the artist died): the bright hues of the rug, books, vases, and bouquet, the flat shapes of the furniture, and the simple straightforward perspective.
Here we see a room in near-perfect balance. A table with a bouquet sits front and center, flanked by chairs and small furniture. Two artworks hang on opposite sides of the canvas. Though Pippin was known for expressive paintings that critiqued war and sociopolitical injustice, he also created these calm interior worlds. Scenes like these seem to represent an ideal world Pippin envisionedâone of inviting tranquility and colorful harmony.
Places made of emotion and memory
Studio View (left) and Girard Dolls, Books and Plants (right) by Mary Finlayson
Itâs impossible not to search Mary Finlayson's still life paintings for clues as to who set up this curated space, to ponder the artistâs personal relationship to it. In part, thatâs because whatâs being represented is more than a physical spaceâitâs a feeling. Fantastical tones, flattened perspective, bold linework, and dynamic layering animate otherwise everyday scenes, transforming each tableau into something much more intimateâa conduit of emotion, memory, and movement. Finlayson's vibrant colors and spirited linework tap into the experience and emotion of place, how a place exists in your memories, elevating the ordinary fixtures of everyday interior life to poetic phrases. These pieces might inspire you to think more about your own at-home environs, the ongoing conversation between you and the things you choose to surround yourself, the happiness (and control!) you have the power to harness through some simple, considered decisions in setting up your personal space.
