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Interiors and Exteriors: Spaces Worth Remembering
February 01, 2026
What makes a house a home? Is it the objects inside that represent those who live within? Is it the warmth and comfort that the physical structure provides? Is a house still a home even if it is tied to hardship or trauma?
Our latest Haas Center for Performing Arts Gallery exhibition, “Between Rooms,” features artwork by four artists: Xiao Han, Maddie May, Sarah Sproule, and Rachelle Wunderink. These artists view the domestic sphere as both tender and fraught, a place where memories, ongoing experiences, and identities are built, unbuilt, and rebuilt. Their artworks reference the interior spaces and objects around us that hold stories, histories, and shape the people we become.
While some artists focus on representing the meaning they find within interior spaces, other artists capture similar concepts, like memory, identity, and shelter, before they even walk through the proverbial “door.” Artwork of the exteriors of homes can be more than simple architectural representations; they can also represent places of safety and belonging, or confinement or isolation. While a house could be considered purely structural, it can become something more through the memories, people, and things it holds.
What memories come to mind when you hear the word “home”?
Do you imagine the structure itself, or a meaningful space or object inside?
The GVSU Art Museum collection has works by several artists who have created renderings of both exterior and interior spaces. These images offer glimpses into personal memories and lived experiences, capturing places that resonated deeply enough in that moment to be preserved through art.
Explore examples of both interiors and exteriors of homes in the collection.
Travis T. Deemer, Welcome Home, photograph, ca. 2013, 2013.32.1.
Michael Pfleghaar, Rocker, Table and Chair, oil pastel, 1997,
2011.131.4.
Ann Baddeley Keister, Leaving Home, wool tapestry, 1997, 1999.679.1.
Bruce McCombs, Voight House, Parlor, watercolor, 1999, 2002.108.1.
Tom Stade, Twin Houses, watercolor, 1993, 1998.297.1.