On Painted Interiors

Reflecting on my collection and why I live with so many interiors.

Jun 11, 2026

∙ Paid

As I work with clients to figure out what they’re drawn to and why, I’ve been reflecting on my own collection and how it has developed over time. The themes and throughlines.

Flowers were one, which I wrote about recently, another is interiors, and I can’t help but wonder why I’m so drawn to them.

On Painted Flowers

Bronwyn Hunter-Shortly

Mar 5

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During Keiran Brennan Hinton’s studio visit last month, we briefly chatted about how much I love that I have a painting of his and Tatum’s living room hanging in my own living room — a bit meta, maybe a bit strange. But I love it, and I’ve been thinking about why.

When I think about what consistently draws me to art, it’s often ephemera or expressions of a very specific moment in time, captured for much longer than they were ever meant to exist.

I love art historical references hidden within artworks for similar reasons. They take a moment from the past and bring it into the present, only to become a moment in time once again.

Like flowers, interiors are temporary. A room only exists exactly as it is for a moment. A pillow on the couch, a half-read book, afternoon light hitting the corner of a room, these things feel permanent when we’re living among them, but they’re constantly changing. That’s what I find so compelling about painted interiors. They preserve evidence of everyday life.

Unlike portraits, which tell us who someone is, interiors often tell us how someone lives. What they collect, read, or what they return to every day without thinking.

Once again, I find myself returning to the Dutch Golden Age, a period that understood interiors remarkably well. Thinking this through, the Dutch painting course I took in university was one of the most rigorous art history classes I’ve ever taken, but it was also my favorite. Even though I’m a contemporary art person through and through, if I had to choose another period of art history, it would be the Dutch Golden Age, and reflecting on my personal collecting has made this, retrospectively, crystal clear.

The more I think about it, the more contemporary it feels. Still lifes, interiors, contemporary clothing, everyday life. While much of art history focused on religion, mythology, landscapes, or historical events, Dutch painters turned their attention to the world directly around them. They made ordinary moments worthy of observation.

Centuries later, I find myself drawn to contemporary painters doing something similar.

Not because I care about the exact chair or lamp being depicted, but because interiors reveal people indirectly, and often more honestly than a portrait can. A room can tell you what someone values, what they’ve inherited, what they’ve chosen to keep close. And unlike photographs, paintings require decisions. The artist chooses what deserves attention and every object becomes intentional.

Perhaps that’s why I love having a painting of someone else’s living room hanging in my own. It’s not really about the room itself. It’s about being invited into a particular moment, one that would otherwise have disappeared.

The older I get, the more I appreciate art that encourages me to notice these small things. Art continues to remind me that life is largely made up of easily overlooked moments, the split second we have to take something in before it changes into something else.

Below are a few contemporary painters, several of whom I live with, whose interiors I am constantly thinking about.